Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy
by Mister Vix
Summary: (COMPLETE) Set 3 years after Bloodrush. X has been living on the streets, and Reapa has been making a name for herself in the field of robotics...but now Bass knows something. Part II summary in PII Ch.1 Part III summar in PIII Ch.1
1. Chapter 1: Like Rain

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy  
  
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Disclaimer (I am only putting it once, I'm sick of these things): I do not own Megaman-X. I do not own any songs which I may happen to quote throughout the fic. I do own my original characters, and my twisted ideas.  
  
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Part I:  
  
Shell.  
  
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Chapter 1:  
  
Like Rain  
  
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Author's Notes: Here it is! All you peoples should be happy now, the sequal has BEGUN!  
  
The deal with the "Part I" junk is this: this story has been stewing in my head for a long while. Originally, it was three seperate stories--which would have made a rather big series. Then I changed my mind. Instead, BRII (as I call it) has a three-part plot. I won't tell you the names of the other two parts yet, because, obviously, we aren't there yet!  
  
So this is, of course, Part I. Beeeeeee happyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!  
  
Also, I'm looking to get another impromptu illustrator. Don't ask me why, but I want a different illustrator for the sequal. Variety, I guess. Besides that, the person who offered to illustrate Bloodrush vanished without a trace. E-mail or message me (addresses and junk are in profile) for offers!  
  
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It had been three years. Three...long...years.  
  
The sky overhead was murky, the dark, sullen clouds threatening rain. The streets in this place, the lowlife part of the city, where few dared to venture alone, were always mostly empty. Except for him.  
  
He hadn't spoken his own name in those three years passed. He had barely spoken at all. He didn't really live anywhere--just wandered from place to place, staying in the outskirts of big cities. He wasn't afraid of being caught by one of the various gangs that roamed the slums--he knew all the gangs, all their members, and they wouldn't dare try to take him on. Three years had been plenty of time for him to get a reputation on the streets.  
  
They knew him as Solo, because he was always alone, something unheard of in this place. Or at least, they thought he was always alone.  
  
A heavy, worn coat obscured most of him--a coat that had been too long for his diminuitive frame, until he tore it up to a suitable length. Beneath the coat was his battle armor, which he never took off anymore--nor did he ever clean it. The white plates, once bold and gleaming, had been smudged and dinged to a dirty gray color, and were scuffed and dented in numerous places from scrapes he had gotten into, back before everyone came to fear him. His black hair was the same as it had always been--he was a reploid, of course his hair would stay unchanged--but it was matted and greasy from neglect.  
  
His eyes were faded. Once, sometime three years ago, they had been bright and sharp, a vibrant emerald. Now they were a brackish tone, dimmed and foggy-looking. X had literally become half-blind from lack of care--everything had a washed-out look, and he had forgotten the last time he saw in actual color.  
  
He walked with a heavy step and a slight limp, head down, hands stuffed in his pockets. Rolling his head back, he looked up at the melancholy sky.  
  
It had been a long, long time since he had smiled. It had been a long time since he had worn any expression at all. Two and a half years, in fact. Not that he was counting.  
  
Solo wasn't as solo as was thought. In the back of his mind, the phantom of a long-dead robot, Bass Forte Wily, had taken up residence. He was the only person the coated figure ever really talked to.  
  
'Looks like rain,' Bass stated the obvious. 'You gonna bother to get out of it this time, X?' X didn't really respond. He simply stared at the sky, pondering the gray. That was the way everything was anymore. Just shades of gray. It was depressing. Everything was depressing, really.  
  
'...why should I bother...' was all he muttered in his mind. Bass, making a face--X could see the ghost in his mind's eye, a tall, dark, winged figure--went silent.  
  
Arguing with X was a pointless waist of breath. Not that Bass had breath to waste, of course, but it was still pointless. X had become so apathetic over the past two years, Bass was surprised he still even got up and moved anymore. To X, everything had become meaningless, and yet still he trudged on, day by day, through the uncaring mire of the streets.  
  
Up ahead, the unspoken border between the low-life section and the rest of the city loomed. It was a great old billboard. For a long time, it had sat there with a tattered old sign, unreadable. But recently, someone had apparently bought it up for advertising--across it now, in bold lettering, was spelled, "THE STUDY OF THE FUTURE! ATRESSA LABS INC., DEVOTED TO IMPROVING THE LIVES OF HUMANS AND REPLOIDS ALIKE!" Bass didn't know about that. The image on the billboard, a smiling woman--a girl, really--and a vaguely familiar reploid stood side-by-side, both smiling in a friendly manner. Something about the girl bothered Bass. She reminded him of someone.  
  
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The building stood high over the heads of most of the others. It was alone in the broad, half-dead field. It was a source of controversy. Atressa Labs Inc., claiming to be a research base. It had been built right on top of the old Maverick Hunter HeadQuarters building, in what some reploids saw as a smiling, backhanded blow from its founder, a dark-eyed girl going by the name Reapa Atressa. Where she had come from, nobody knew, but she was a genius. And then there was her assistant, the reploid going by the name Eutsia. Eutsia was another thing that bugged a number of reploids--especially the few remaining Hunters. He had a suspicious look about him. He was charismatic, smooth, charming--and had the look of a liar and a turncoat. There were only one or two Hunters--they still called themselves that, even after the collapse of MHHQ--that actually recognized him for who he was. HissnLatch, that despicable double-crosser whose alliances jumped back and forth during the Maverick War.  
  
"I've been waiting three years for this danged project, I'm not waiting any longer!" the girl yelled at her assistant. Eutsia--or HissnLatch, as Reapa still knew him--simply smiled at her in his usual way.   
  
"You won't have to," he said calmly. "We've finished gathering together and researching all the Manticoratim anywhere in the area." Manticoratim was what Reapa had named the strange blue metal, the metal which Manticore, the leader of the now-destroyed Third Faction, had stockpiled. She figured she may as well give the dead reploid some credit.  
  
"Wonderful!" Reapa said, laughing wickedly. Since her amnesia had vanished, her true personality had finally come the surface--fiery, often nasty, and very decisive and controlling. "Have we got everything we need, then?" HissnLatch nodded. While it didn't really show with his calm demeanor, he was actually every bit as excited about this project as Reapa.  
  
No one else knew about this. It was Reapa's personal hobby, something she had kept hidden. There were no records on it, no evidence of it, no nothing. No one could get into the room where she kept her materials. No one even knew that room existed.  
  
The pair were heading down the halls at a rapid pace. HissnLatch led the way--his long-legged strides easily outpaced the girl--but it was Reapa who would open the door. That door wouldn't open for anyone else. The door just looked like a blank patch of wall, plain and unadorned. But as soon as Reapa touched her hand to the very center of that patch of wall, it slid away without a sound. She slipped through, followed closely by her assistant, and the wall slid shut once more.  
  
In the room, flourescent lights glaring down on it, was a standard repair table. But what it was occupied with was no average bit of machinery to be fixed. It was a reploid. A reploid who had been dead for three years, a reploid she had dug from the ruins of Sigma's fortress.  
  
Reapa, as always, took a moment to marvel at the empty metal shell. She traced her fingers up the smooth crimson breastplate, around the three deep gouges which still marred it, up the reploid's neck to its face. It was truly a work of art, really--so perfectly made, still in such amazing condition, despite the fact that it had been made before the Cataclysm and had been buried under a mountain of shrapnel. Its eyes were half-open, a rich, sea-blue, lifeless. Its mane of golden-blonde hair hung off the side of the table.  
  
"Soon enough, Zero," Reapa laughed, turning to one of the shelves to the side, loaded with all the equipment she needed to repair him. "Now that I have a steady supply of Manticoratim, I can finally bring you back..." HissnLatch leaned against the wall, an odd little smile on his face as he watched the girl, a wicked grin on her face, gather together everything she would need. Without the turncoat reploid, Zero's repair would have been much less satisfactory--likely even impossible. For Reapa did not wish to simply repair the Crimson Demon--she had designed him completely new armor, and a new arsonnel of weaponry, all based on the things HissnLatch knew. Zero's new armor was based heavily on HissnLatch's own--the metal was of such a flexable quality, it looked more like leather than armor. The thin black undersuit was hyper-absorbant, dilluting damage taken from plasmatic attacks, while the armor itself was reflective, an odd but effective combination. The new armor would be ten times lighter than what Zero currently wore, and even more flexable, allowing him much greater agility. And his new weaponry...  
  
His buster had been changed. It was now almost like a submachine gun, faster but somewhat less powerful. Then came the device called the Boomerang Shield. It actually created a pair of short energy blades, which whirled swiftly enough to bounce away all plasma shots. And once it had charged enough energy, it could multiply the blades into a whirling sawblade of energy, which could be thrown at enemies and would arc about to return to the user. The Triple Rod was a spear, with a head of energy, which could collapse into an easily-carried state and then extend to attack from a distance. Once charged, it could ignite both ends, changing it from a thrusting weapon to a spinning weapon.  
  
And now, Zero's saber worked differantly. His old one had been destroyed completely, and so she had created a new one. And this saber had a very unique ability--when a special triggure was pressed, it could retract and begin to charge its blade, which, at full power level, would result in a powerful, almost cannonlike shot.  
  
But, of course, Zero would be useless to her unless she did something about his attitude. He had rebelled against his original creator, Dr. Albert Wily, and had rebelled against Sigma--of course he would rebel against her if he got the chance. But she had thought of a way to fix that. Free will was an easy thing to strip from a machine.  
  
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It was a gaudy, pretty little thing. He watched it spin enchantingly on its chain, a perfactly crafted pendant. It was designed as a wasp, made of pure gold, set with rubies for eyes, diamond wings. His fiery aqua eyes finally snapped away, turned back to the man holding the pendant.  
  
"Alright, how much do you want for it?" Jabberwock asked. He had been doing better now than he ever had. He had even found himself a job, though not a great one--he worked with an assemblage of other reploids in a scrap recycling plant.   
  
The figure before him considered, then held the pendant out to Jabberwock with an odd smile. He was unbelievably pale, his skin pure white. His eyes were a fiery red-pink, indicating his paleness was because he was, in fact, an albino. A rarity, but certainly not unheard of. His hair was dyed a sky-blue color, and cut oddly, with one single lock hanging long down the side of his face, the rest kept shorter. He wore the strangest outfit Jabberwock had ever seen. A dark reddish-brown shirt with tattered sleeves, charcoal-colored dress slacks and black dress shoes, and a cloak of fur--real fur, not synthetic stuff--that looked like it came straight out of the medival era. And he kept his right hand hidden under that cloak at all times. A concealed weapon of some sort incase someone tried to rob him, no doubt.  
  
"You, my fine sir, may have this trinket for no cost," he said. "A gift for my first customer in this city." Jabberwock, ever suspicious, looked at him intensely. The strange albino's smile was disconcerting...but the pendant was too enchanting for him to resist.  
  
"Thanks," he said shortly, taking the wasp pendant. The albino bowed slightly, and watched as Jabberwock walked away.  
  
"No cost, but quite a price," he mused to himself, and laughed sharply before turning and vanishing down the alleyway.  
  
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Bass was a bit bothered. The image of that girl on the billboard kept popping into his head. What was it about her?  
  
'...her eyes,' he finally decided. Something about those eyes bothered him. And then it hit him.  
  
'...no way...that's impossible...' But it was possible. It was terribly, frighteningly possible.  
  
'X!' he said aloud--or at least, as close to aloud as he could. There was a muted response, a bare acknowledgment that the Blue had heard him. 'Did you see that billboard, on the border, the one about Atressa Labs?'  
  
'Yeah,' the reploid replied dully, uninterested.  
  
'That girl on there. I think I know who she was, and you will not believe it,' the phantom said. He was actually excited, but not even that could get X's attention much.  
  
'That's wonderful Bass...and this is important why?' the Blue sighed. Bass fumed at X's lack of enthusiasm. He was going to break the reploid out of this lethargy, if it was the last thing he did!  
  
'SHE'S WILY SPAWN!' THAT got X's attention.  
  
'What? What do you mean?' he asked sharply.  
  
'Wily had a kid! Some daughter he never talked about! That girl, on the billboard, is his granddaughter! She would have to be! Her eyes aren't the right color, but they're EXACTLY LIKE WILY'S. I can tell,' he shouted excitedly. X was silent for a moment.  
  
'...if she's anything like Wily, there is serious trouble brewing,' the Blue said at last.  
  
'You can count on that.'  
  
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Reapa Atressa, named Anna Lu Atressa by her mother, granddaughter of the mad Dr. Albert Wily and follower in his footsteps, had been working at a furious pace to complete Zero's new armor. The Crimson Demon had been the epitome of her grandfather's achievements, and it had turned on him. But now, she would fix that, and succeed where her grandfather had always failed. For now, there were no heros--there were only bemused, bitter humans and uncaring reploids.  
  
"Don't burn yourself out," HissnLatch advised from his place in the corner. Reapa did not even acknowledge him. The armor was almost done--just one more day, and she would be ready to move on to the final stage of reconstruction--making sure that Zero could not revolt against her.  
  
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X was running. It made his limp more pronounced, made the stiffness in his leg shift more towards pain, but he didn't care. His ragged coat flapped as he ran into the wind, the rain beginning to fall. He was headed towards the den of one of those gangs. The best of them, really. They called themselves the Adderfangs, and they were the most feared out on the streets. He had spoken once or twice with their leader, a serpent reploid--an adder, in fact, which was where the gang got its name--by the name of Eyes.  
  
It wouldn't be the first time X had actually sought out a gang, but certainly the first where he wasn't intent on starting a brawl. X had started a few fights with gangs, just to prove his point that they should leave him alone. Now, he was planning to put the gang to use. The Adderfangs had quite a network of spies and informants, which would hopefully let X know what that girl, the Wily spawn, was up to.  
  
Bass was slightly amazed at how quickly X had broken out of his apathetic entrancement. That could be accounted to the reploid's natural demeanor--he was a protector. And now, with a likely threat of danger on the horizon, he automatically tried to defend against it.  
  
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"Say what?" Eyes asked lowly. "Why the heck should I do this, Solo?" X rolled his eyes. They were still dim, and still half-blind, but that would fix itself with time--he simply hadn't cared to make it, before.  
  
"First off, I'm X, not 'Solo.' Second off, you're doing this because I TOLD you to, and I'm not in the mood for any crap. Got it?" the Blue had learned the hard way how to deal with gang leaders. They didn't care for "please" and "thank you." They would only listen if they thought you were tough enough to deserve listening to, and that meant bossing them around forcefully. Eyes was silent for a moment, then nodded.  
  
"Sure thing, X," he hissed. "You got yourself a network." Then he was off, shouting for different gangmembers, demanding that they get their sorry behinds to the main room at once. X headed off. Hanging around would get him nothing, and now he had something to do.  
  
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It had been years since X made any attempt at hygiene, so understandably, he himself was a bit disgusted when he finally removed the plates of his armor. Already, the true green color of his eyes was returning.  
  
As soon as X managed to clean himself up whatever amount he could--he spent quite a while fighting with his hair, yelping and growling incessantly at himself for letting it go so long--he began trying to work some of the grime off his armor.  
  
"Sheesh, what a slob," he accused himself, as he finally managed to work something of a shine out of his breastplate.  
  
Bass, watching everything from his little spot in the corner of X's mind, tried to suppress his worry. X had broken out of his wretched state, but if this deal with the Wily spawn turned out to be nothing at all, he would slip right back in. Bass was torn between being mad at Zero--blaming him for all of this--and being miserable over him, since he WAS dead, after all. Being angry at dead people doesn't really get you anywhere. If only reploids could pull the same trick he had, turning themselves into a ghost...  
  
The sky growled angrily as the rain fell, the shower beginning to transform into a storm. 


	2. Chapter 2: Yin and Yang

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy  
  
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Part I:  
  
Shell  
  
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Chapter 2:  
  
Yin and Yang  
  
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Author's Notes: Yay for reviewers Crystalstorm21 and Unclear-Destiny! ...not sure if I can give much of a yay to "gagagoogoo," who seems to believe I am writing solely to cater to their personal desires. You'll GET shounen-ai only if I decide to WRITE shounen-ai!  
  
As Iridescent Hope suspected, Zero's new armor is the stuff you have in Megaman Zero (or Rockman Zero, if you prefer). Yes, I know a lot of people dislike that armor, but I think it seems alot more practical--lighter, thinner, more flexable, and probably a heck of a lot easier to get on.  
  
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Just the day before, HissnLatch had been enthusiastic about Reapa's pet project. But that had been before she came to him, fully in the throes of triumph, to show him what she had devised to keep Zero under control.   
  
"I call it a Shell Program," she had hissed, excitement making her dark eyes burn deep within, feverishly. "The reploid mind cannot be destroyed--not without ruining all the skill Zero has aquired through it--but it can be encased, suppressed, and made helpless. Holding the reploid mind in an eternal state of sub-consciousness, the Shell Program functions as a basic, obediant machine--but a machine with full access to anything within the reploid mind. And this Shell cannot be broken, not by anything!"  
  
HissnLatch, the undauntable doublecrosser, who could waltz straight into the heart of the enemy's forces without so much as a twitch, was frightened by this Shell Program. If such a thing were to fall into the hands of some of the anti-reploid groups that dotted the cities, it could mean the beginning of slow extinction for the entire reploid race. The Shell Program could very easily be the whip that turned reploids into nothing more than robot slaves.  
  
But HissnLatch was good at hiding what he really thought. He said nothing to Reapa which might indicate how frightened he was at this--he could just imagine himself, turned into nothing more than a puppet for a lifeless bit of code--and feigned enthusiasm for the whole thing.  
  
Now, it was time for Zero to be awoken. There would be a few moments of danger, of course; the Shell Program could not be installed in a dead reploid. He would have to be brought back first, and then the Shell put into place.  
  
However, Reapa wasn't overarrogant. She knew that her Shell Program may very well glitch up and simply destroy Zero's mind. And so she had done yet another unprecedented thing. She had copied Zero's control chip.  
  
At HissnLatch's questioning of how on earth she had done that, she responded simply,   
  
"A little trick I learned a while back. I tested the technique on Sharded Wolf's control chip first, so now I've got a dozen copies of the old dog floating around here somewhere..."  
  
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What came through the network X had requested was, so far, a bunch of strange rumors but harmless facts. Reapa Atressa had no history, it seemed--she claimed to have been an orphan, who was raised by a group of reploids on the streets. She didn't know where those reploids were anymore. She was insanely good at working with delicate machinery. She was somewhat overbearing of her staff at times, but that was to be expected of any boss. However, X had learned a single thing, the only thing that Bass needed to confirm entirely his suspicion of her being Wily spawn--Reapa had a tattoo of a deathshead skull on her right arm.  
  
'That was Wily's insignia,' the phantom robot informed X. 'The skull. Death. If Reapa has that tattoo...then, clearly, her mom intended for her to walk the same path as Wily. You don't get tattoos like that just for the heck of it.' X could only agree.  
  
Of the rumors, there was only one that piqued his interest, and it was vague. Reapa, according to this rumor, had a special project going that she told no one of--for extended periods, sometimes entire nights, she would vanish, to appear again the next day, tired out, apparently having worked hard on whatever it was. Eutsia, her main assistant, usually dissappeared with her. Of course this had also caused the rumor of some twisted love affair--but that was stupid and unbelievable. While he supposed there was a slim chance it could be possible--it all depended on who had built Eutsia, and how close to human they had decided to build him--it did not fit Reapa's personality whatsoever. It was much more likely the pair were both working on a secret project, one which they didn't want anyone else to know about...  
  
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Regaining consciousness was like clawing his way through a thick mire; it was dark, cold, and slow, and every time he paused his floundering, he began to sink back into the swampy depths. But as soon as he finally gained a grip on the real world, there was no way he was going back under--his head felt as though it were suddenly making up for all those times he hadn't gotten hung over.  
  
"Ssssaaah...I swear I'll never touch the stuff again..." he groaned. He knew already that he didn't want to open his eyes. The very thought of a light shining into his eyes spawned a feel of dread.  
  
Now...what, exactly, had happened to him? His mind was a big, chaotic jumbled of bits and pieces, all disconected and unretrievable.  
  
Finally, despite the fact that he knew the light would only worsen his headache, he opened his eyes.  
  
"Grah!" he snarled, trying to pull up a hand in order to block the harshly flourescent glare. No response from said hand. "Eh?"  
  
"Welcome back to the land of the living, then," someone said. Zero twisted his head, trying to see what was pinning him. First, however, he saw his armor.  
  
"Woah! What's going on with all this?" He may not be able to grasp much when it came to recollection, but he KNEW his armor hadn't looked like THIS.  
  
"I made you new armor. Your old was somewhat...inefficient." The girl speaking, a fiery-eyed little person, held up Zero's battled old breastplate, the three holes still punched into the metal. Zero felt a twinge in his chest, and then remembered. He had been dead. Three great claws, belonging to Sharded Wolf, had been straight through him. And he had died. He had died in X's arms. He remember that he had wanted to apologize, apologize to X for getting himself skewerd, but he hadn't quite had the breath for it.  
  
Zero's first response was to begin cursing Sharded Wolf in every language he knew, and there certainly were plenty. He even made up a few, because he could.  
  
After he finished that, he set his stare on the girl.  
  
"Okay, I guess I owe my gratitude since you brought me back and all, but where the heck are we and why am I strapped to a table?"  
  
The girl's smile was deadly.  
  
"Goodnight, Zero."  
  
A droning, hollow voice rang in the back of Zero's head, 'Shell Program has been activated.' He was taken completely by surprise, and was thrown back into darkness before he could put up a fight.  
  
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If HissnLatch had been afraid of the Shell before, now that it had a body, the turncoat was deadly terrified. Shell, as had become its name--or Shelly, when HissnLatch decided to poke fun, which never really worked because Shell couldn't grasp such a concept as humor or mockery--was a thing to strike awe into anyone.  
  
Its battle skills were an epitome of perfection. They should be, after all, since they were copied directly from Zero. It moved with the liquid, lightning grace often compared with felines.  
  
But that was all. A machine, made to kill. It did that with absolute flawlessness, but it did nothing else.  
  
It was to be HissnLatch's final day at Atressa Labs Inc., although he didn't know it yet. Reapa was staring into a computer screen, reading an e-mail from another company--CyberCerebellum, was the rediculously corny name. They studied, specifically, A.I. and the reploid mind. And they were offering her quite a lot of money, both for her technique of copying reploid control chips, and for the chip she had copied. She turned about to face HissnLatch slowly as he walked in.  
  
"Hiss..." she addressed him, her voice dangerously casual, "...how would this company have known about my copy of Zero's chip?" HissnLatch froze for all of one third a second. Then, spinning on his heel, he ran.  
  
To try and tell stories to Reapa was to try and tell stories to Satan. You do not lie to someone who built an empire from lies.  
  
Shell was after him. The murder machine had not yet made any appearance in the halls, but now it was commanded to hunt down the traitor, and it had no thoughts for keeping itself concealed.  
  
HissnLatch didn't really regret slipping info to another company, even though he was now running for his dear sweet life. He had decided to put a hitch in Reapa's ego. He had NOT expected the morons he had tipped off to ask to BUY the stupid thing!  
  
He tripped on someone who was in the hall, collided violently with the floor, and rolled himself out of the way even as Shell stabbed into the tile with its saber. Fighting it would be pointless--it would kill him almost instantly. He just needed a moment to pull out a minitrans device and set it!  
  
He was off down the hall, his boots ringing loudly, the minitrans in hand. He punched in numbers for the buffer and coordinate codes, but he didn't have the time he needed to activate it...still, if he tried to keep running, he would be dead anyway. HissnLatch was a good sprinter, but Shell had dash jets.  
  
Rounding a corner sharply, he flipped the device on. It hummed and sputtered, powering up with agonizing slowness, lights flickering from within the metal box. The field sprouted outwards...and HissnLatch was thrown against the wall, the wicked Triple Rod's plasma spearhead driven straight through his middle. He choked on his own blood, managing to wrench the spear out of Shell's grip and threw it away, and then vanished.  
  
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Maybe it was just coincidence. Bass would more readily blame fate, finally giving them a look of favor. X had been slipping steadily back into apathy--they hadn't gotten anywhere with their futile search for dirt on Reapa.  
  
Either way, X saw the teleport light that flashed in the street not a block ahead, and, after a moment of urging from Bass, he trotted over to check it out. And found Eutsia, who he had by now confirmed was HissnLatch the turncoat.  
  
The reploid was dying. He knew that the moment he saw him, sitting propped up against a shabby brick wall, staring vacantly into space. Blood fanned thickly onto the ground from the hole in his stomache. He turned his head slightly at X's approach, his yellow eyes dazed. A slight half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he pulled his rediculous hat off his head.  
  
"Hello, X," he said, his voice thin with pain but nontheless insistant upon its feigned cheerfullness. Blood was leaking slowly from the corner of his mouth. "What a strange turn of events. I run away from the Yang, and I find the Yin. Or maybe that's not the right term for this situation." His eyes grew even more distant, glazed thickly. "You've been looking all over for someone you can't find, right?" His voice had taken on the quality of someone talking in their sleep. "Reapa brought Zero back, but he's still dead...Shell's there now. You can't talk to Shell. Shell...he...hehehhehehehe...he's the one who poked a hole in my...right through...hehehe..."  
  
"What do you mean, Shell?" X asked, his eyes fiery and urgent. HissnLatch stared off into space somewhere to X's left, and whispered, very, very quietly,  
  
"Shell is a demon that posseses reploids..." The turncoat, HissnLatch, who would never stay on one side more than a month, gasped his final breath in a dirty, low-life section of town. And even then, he had once again been passing information on.  
  
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It was times like these Bass wished dearly he was alive again. Well, he always wished he was alive, but now especially. As it was, he was wound up with an anxious anticipation that made all his phantom senses seem too sharp--it seemed like little things kept threatening to distract him, things he would never have noticed otherwise. HissnLatch's final cryptic message was foremost in his thoughts.  
  
'A demon that posseses reploids...' There were no demons, of course, but that was just an expression. Just like HissnLatch had called Zero "Yin" and X "Yang," the two opposing forces from the Chinese philosophy of Daoism. Yang was the white half--light, male, and aggressive, Yin the black half--dark, female, submissive. He wasn't sure if he would really say X was a fitting Yang. The Blue certainly wasn't as bad as Zero, but he could be a fighter whenever he needed to be. And X certainly was NOT female.  
  
Bass realized he had gotten off of his topic again and cursed. He HAD to stay dedicated--if they ran straight into this with no idea what would happen, there were sure to be accidents.   
  
As it turned out, they didn't have to head off to Atressa Labs at all--Shell, hunting his prey, was coming straight to them.  
  
_______________________  
  
In the huge ruckus going on in Atressa Labs, talk about how a strange reploid had blown through the halls and attacked Eutsia before running off, the intruder was not even noticed. He was a thin, wirey fellow, with coal-black hair and coal-black eyes. In a simple suit, he could stroll up and down the halls without anyone even noticing. To put it plainly, he was boring. There was nothing special about him.  
  
And so, he slipped his way from one place to the next, until he spotted Reapa. She was in the process of heading back to her own secretive lab, and so flustered, she mistakenly forgot to check for followers before sliding the door open. That was when the boring-looking fellow walked sedately up behind Reapa and, without even the slightest change in expression, put the small automatic pistol he had concealed beneath his shirt to her head. The girl froze, and when she looked back at him, her dark eyes were baleful.  
  
"You're from CyberCerebellum." He nodded placidly, then shoved her inside. Keeping his gun trained on her at all times, he rummaged around. Usual enough things--bits and pieces of machines, repair equipment, sheets upon sheets of data, that sort of thing. But then he found the pack sitting in a dark corner, and removed from it the control chips--two of them. They were each in their own protective case, one marked "SW" and the other marked "Z." The invader pocketed them, and, after quickly leafing through a packet of papers, slid that in his shirt as well. Then he smiled ever so slightly.  
  
"Thanks for your cooperation," he said dimly, and activated the pre-programmed minitrans he had in one pocket. He was gone within moments, leaving the afterimage of the teleport glow on Reapa's eyes and rage burning like acid in her mind.  
  
_______________________  
  
'Shell is a demon that posseses reploids...'  
  
X was mulling--just as Bass was--over HissnLatch's final words. He looked up in a distracted manner as he heard swiftly approaching footsteps, but at first what he saw didn't register. He was staring at a figure he had seen only in his memories for the past three years--golden blonde hair streaming wildly out behind him, sea-blue eyes intent and dangerous. His armor had changed--it now looked almost as though made of leather--but that hardly mattered. He wanted to run over to his lost friend, but HissnLatch's warning rang in his mind, made him look closer. Zero's perfect-blue eyes were empty and glassy, his face set in a state of studied blankness. It was Zero's body, but Zero wasn't home.  
  
X hadn't even realized he had activated his buster until he felt the sharp tingling as it charged, the humming as its chambers sucked in air. He knew he couldn't fire it--not at Zero, even if that wasn't really Zero--but it seemed to make an impression on the possessor demon. It paused, empty eyes calculating the buster...then it snatched something from a holster, and suddenly charged forward, saber flaring to life in a neon arc.  
  
X jumped away, keeping his buster trained on the thing that was pretending to be Zero.  
  
"What are you?!" he shouted at it, enraged that someone would steal Zero's body and use it in such a way. The demon paused, flat, perfectly blue eyes studying him. It apparently decided it was not obliged to answer him, and charged again. X jumped, cursing to himself. What was he going to do about this?! He couldn't shoot at it! What if Zero was trapped in there somewhere?  
  
The demon solved the problem for him. Its eyes glazed eyes suddenly lost focus, as though it were listening to someone X couldn't hear, and then it turned and began to run away. X gave chase, shouting, demanding that the beast tell him who and what it was, but the demon did not even acknowledge the fact that X was still present. It seemed to take for granted that X could not bring himself to open fire on it.  
  
_______________________  
  
"I want you to hunt him down," Reapa hissed. Shell stood rigidly before her now--she had called him back, and he had obeyed. She couldn't help but grin inwardly at that. Shell hissed a vague affirmative--she didn't know why it even bothered with that, she already knew it would do whatever she told it to--and rushed away. It did have a teleporter, of course, but she had no idea what coordinates to send it to.  
  
Shell was going to repay CyberCerebellum for their theft. 


	3. Chapter 3: King of Fog

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy  
  
______________________  
  
Part I:  
  
Shell  
  
______________________  
  
Chapter 3:  
  
King of Fog  
  
______________________  
  
Author's Notes: w00t, folks, w00t. I've been struggling quite a bit with these chapters. All my ideas are for later on, in Part III! Dangit. That's the reason I'm pulling along through the plot so quickly. Parts I and II will prolly both be like that, sadly. Hopefully I can make up for it in Part III.  
  
Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21, Iridescent Hope, and Zeshin-kun! And Zeshin, if spiritualistic events bother you, I suggest you stop reading this fic now. I can guarantee you, eventually there will be more.  
  
And, to Iri (aaaaah shortened name!), yes I DO like to toy with people's emotions XD *evil laughter* and be assured, this isn't nearly the end of the torture. Although I DO intend to make up for it...in the end of Part I. Which is probably going to be soon.  
  
...this chapter turned out short...there'll likely only be one more chapter and the Part I Epilogue, and then Part I will be over. Yes, each Part has an epilogue to it, because there's actually quite a bit of time seperating each Part.  
  
______________________  
  
Jabberwock was supposed to be at work. He didn't really know why he wasn't. All he knew was, he had wandered into a crowded section of downtown, and was staring up at the sign of a cramped little novelty shop, with no memory of travelling there. He didn't worry about this overmuch--his head felt foggy, and thinking was bothersome and slow--as he pushed open the door. It was supposed to look like antique carved wood, but paint was chipping away from the low-grade metal surface. Across the overhead sign was splashed "Bits and Baubles" in gaudy yellow paint that was chipped and flaking. Across the door, in red paint, had been roughly splattered "OUT OF BUSINESS."  
  
Jabberwock didn't really know what he was supposed to be doing inside the small, dark place. It smelled of a mixture of dust, bleach, and cheap incense, a combination to make one gag. Jabberwock took little notice of the asphixiating smell, however, walking down one row. Around his neck, spinning and shivering on its delicate chain, was the wasp pendant.  
  
The black-metal beast almost tripped over a strange heap on the floor, which stank strongly of incense and bleach. It looked like a jumble of rags, probably used previously to clean the shelves and baubles, before the store had folded. Now they layed in a slowly-degenerating heap. That would explain the bleach smell, but the incense was strange.  
  
The reploid kicked some of the rags back, and, without any hint of surprise or disgust, uncovered the corpse of some unlucky person, that had been dumped in this place because no one ever looked in here. Jabberwock didn't care about the dead man, however. He shoved the body out of the way--it was only a marker, even though the killer who had stuffed it there didn't know he was marking something much bigger than a murder--and clawed at the floorboards beneath. They were old and worn, and in his strong grip, they splintered apart with a dry snap. The floor was torn open, revealing a dark old hole in the foundations. His claws snicked on something hard and metallic, hidden down in the dark.  
  
_____________________  
  
He was standing in an apocolyptic place, and around him was a circle of huge, imposing figures. They were mechanical ravens, their eyes flat, hard gems set in a skull of ebony metal. Sheets of black, inlaid with silver to create a mockery of feathers, seemed to cover not just the birds themselves but the sky, the earth, everything, false feathers with razor-sharp edges. It would only take one odd step to tear him apart on the bladed gulleys. And the mechanical ravens were shifting their jagged, deadly wings, gem-eyes staring straight at him. He couldn't get away from them. Their circle was unbroken and unbreakable, and more were landing, flying in on their noisy metal wings, gears snapping and cracking, hinges creaking and grinding. They were old ravens, he knew, but that did not make them any less dangerous. They would kill him if he tried to get away. They would tear him to pieces, and scatter his remains all across their barren, dark world, under a sky of silver-shot ebony. He would join the others he knew where out there--the others who had moved when the ravens were watching them.   
  
"Is there anyone still alive?" he asked, but the only answer was silence. Then one of the ravens shifted on its metal talons, its eyes glaring.  
  
"SILENCE," it demanded. "YOU WILL NOT SPEAK HERE. ONLY THE DEAD SPEAK HERE." The dead were not doing any speaking...  
  
_____________________  
  
She had been stalking along in a downtown alley. Her eyes were wary and had an animal gleam, and her plated armor still shone dully. A slender beamsaber hilt was tucked into the holster on her belt, and a pair of handheld busters hung at her hips. She moved with a cautious, utterly silent step, like a hunting cat. Her hair had been cropped short under her helmet, to keep it out of the way for good. She was a Hunter.  
  
In the three years since the MHHQ's collapse, the remaining Hunters had regrouped. But the only ones left were those who could not let go of times past, could not accept the fact that their time for fighting was done. They were the ones with few things before they became Hunters, and nothing once the Hunters were gone.   
  
The original purpose of the Hunters, to defend, was gone. It had been forgotten. The Maverick Hunters were gone. They were just Hunters now, an underground group which followed hidden agendas and had long since lost sight of why it existed. They were those who could not forget the fighting and bloodshed.  
  
She whipped out her rapier-like sabre, flaring it to life, but all its lavender blade illuminated was an empty alley. Nothing there...  
  
"You're getting inattentive, Kariss," muttered a voice from behind her. She whirled around, the tip of the plasma blade coming to rest just under the reploid's chin. She deactivated it again, then, and saluted rigidly.  
  
"Apologies, Sir Reggae," she replied. The mantis nodded.  
  
Once Reggae had been the head of the MHHQ's medical unit. He had ruled his domain with precision and efficiency. But in the end, the calling his creator had intended for him came to him, wound about him like a noose. He could not adjust to the slower-paced workings of the rest of the world, could not cope with situations which weren't a fast, flurrying life-or-death experiance. And so he had returned to the Hunters, and become their leader. He had given up what he had enjoyed, and now his golden eyes were dim and harsh.  
  
Reggae was just about to speak again when the building to the their left burst outwards, burying them both under its rubble.  
  
_____________________  
  
X had the feeling he was going to mess this up. The Atressa Labs building that towered ominously in the center of the dead field seemed to be taunting him, a looming, impenetrable fortress. The wind howling mournfully, the brittle grass crunching under his boots, and the sinking feeling in his middle seemed to be signs of dead certain failure, but still he walked onwards as calmly as he could.  
  
There was only one way to find out what had been done to Zero. And that was to go to the place it had been done, and find the one who had done it. Reapa Atressa.  
  
He didn't care about stealth. He simply pushed open the door, his tattered coat flaring and flapping in the wind, and stepped inside. A security guard started to say something, but X, without a pause, held up his arm. The plates of his armor slid up and clicked into place, folding into his buster cannon. The guard stopped and stood still.  
  
"Where is Reapa?" The guard seemed to have lost his tongue, staring into X's baleful green eyes, eyes which narrowed sharply when there was no reply. "Where is she?!"   
  
"Third floor!" the guard sputtered, and X strode past him.  
  
The third floor was mostly empty by the time he got there. And Reapa already stood out in the hall, staring at him with her darkly smouldering eyes. She laughed wildly.  
  
"So you are X! The vanished reploid who went Maverick and back again. The one Sharded Wolf wanted so desperately to kill...and in the end he died at your hands, just as he almost did the first time he tried to fight you." Her laughter died down into low chuckles. "I am not impressed." X ignored that comment.  
  
"Where is Zero?" he grated, hands curled into fists. This set her off into another gale of laughter.  
  
"Zero is someplace no one will ever find him again!" she cackled, "and Shell is in his place now. Shell is much more obediant than Zero..." X wanted to grab her and shake her until her teeth rattled in her skull, but he stayed still.  
  
"What did you do to Zero?" Reapa stared into the reploid's blazing green eyes, and her laughter died away.   
  
"It's called the Shell Program. It seals away the reploid mind, makes them perfectly obediant...makes them machines," she hissed. "And it cannot be defeated." X snarled.  
  
"We'll see about that..."  
  
They faced each other, unknowingly have come to the same position that, so many times in the past, their ancestors had--Megaman, facing down Wily, unwilling and unable to do anything to his nemesis; Wily still unrepentant. The difference was, X could have killed Reapa. Could have...but he would not.  
  
"Won't we now?" she replied. Her eyes flickered. The moment she had heard that a strange, armed reploid was forcing his way through the building towards her, she had contacted Shell and commanded that he return. He would be here any second...  
  
____________________  
  
ONLY THE DEAD SPEAK HERE. There was a clue in that...very plain, obvious. The ravens could not convolute their words very skillfully. But he couldn't recall...  
  
He looked up. It was the first time he had looked up. And as he stared at the sky, the sky that was ebony veined with silver in mocking feather patterns, he realized there was no sky--it was a great mirror. The ravens came down from above, but nothing could go back up through that mirror. He saw himself, and was surprised. He was staring upwards at a man staring downwards, into eyes the color of the sea, set in a face paled by exhaustion and fear, framed by golden-blonde hair that had worked itself mostly out of its long, thick tail. He was wearing his armor, he realized, the familiar crimson plates gleaming as brightly as ever, despite how disheveled he himself looked.  
  
"STOP THAT," one of the ravens croaked. Its metallic wings clanked as it shifted them. To him, it looked uneasy.  
  
He didn't give himself time to think about it. If he did, he might not be able to make himself start. He ran.  
  
The ravens flew up in a screeching, rusty gang, trying hurriedly to get out of his way. His boots crunched heavily on the razor edges, snapping some and slipping awkwardly from others. Time and again his balance was threatened, but he continued to run, headlong into the bleak desert of black and silver.   
  
The ravens were not about to give their prisoner up so easily. One of the great metal birds swooped down, streaking like a missle, huge talons out, and snatched his helmet neatly off his head. He was thrown forward, and tucked into a roll, shielding his now-unprotected head as best he could with his arms, the bladed ground tearing at him. When he came up on his feet, he left an unfortunate amount of his blonde hair behind him, and there was an assemblage of shallow but painful gashes across his cheek and forehead.   
  
He tripped and stumbled and ran across the deadlands, the ravens growing slowly more distant. Their ancient gears could not hold up to such a chase, and some had broken, falling like stones to the ground, to land with resounding, crumpling crashes. But he was wearing out, and there was nowhere to hide in this empty place.  
  
Something stepped in front of him, and he skidded to a halt. It was a shadow, an ethereal figure of solid black, shaped vaguely humanoid.   
  
"Who...?" he began, but it held up a hand in a shushing gesture. Then it grabbed his wrist, and its touch made him shiver. It was colder than ice. The shadow began to drag him along, running soundlessly amongst the ridges of metal, seemingly unworried about the razor edges. Though it was partially transparent, it seemed solid, yet impervious to the danger of the metal.   
  
"Where...?" he tried, but again it made a silencing motion, continuing to run. Finally, it pulled him roughly to one side, and, his balance leaving much to be desired, he fell--down into a tunnel, rolling to a stop on a soft dirt floor. The shadow slid down beside him, then looked back up through the opening.  
  
"...only the dead are safe, but the birds will not find you for now..." it hissed, and its breath chilled the air. Its voice was brittle and thin.  
  
"Who are you?" Zero finally got to ask. Maybe it looked at him, or maybe it was turning to look elsewhere--it was impossible to tell.  
  
"We're not anyone," it replied. "Don't ask us that again." It--they?--clearly did not wish to speak. Zero sighed, and looked out through the tunnel. The ravens were, apparently, gone--he could see no trace of them. 


	4. Chapter 4: Shattered Raven

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy  
  
__________________________  
  
Part I:  
  
Shell  
  
__________________________  
  
Chapter 4:  
  
Shattered Raven  
  
__________________________  
  
Author's Notes: Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21, Unclear Destiny, and Iridescent Hope!  
  
Anyway, stuff. I've changed the general run of the story. I took out Part II, because I found that it fit better as part of the ending to Part I. It wasn't full enough to be its own seperate Part. That also means that this fic technically shouldn't be called Trilogy anymore, but oh well. That's its title.  
  
I also fixed the Yin/Yang mixup. Hope I didn't offend any people who actually know something about Daoism :\ We all make stupid mistakes sometimes.  
  
__________________________  
  
Bass had to think quick, or he and X would both be dead. There had to be SOME way to...  
  
'ONLY THE DEAD SPEAK HERE.' He didn't know whose voice it was--it was thin, dry, brittle, and chilling cold--but he knew what it meant. And he had an idea.  
  
'X,' he hissed, 'I know what to do, but you have to pin Shell, or distract him, or something.'  
  
'Whatever this idea is, I hope it works...' X's mental voice was trembling with tightly-lidded fear.  
  
__________________________  
  
Shell teleported away from where it was--hot on the trail of the thief, but it felt no annoyance at being called away just when it was starting to make progress--reappearing inside of Reapa's little lab. It threw open the door and dashed down the hallway, focused entirely on defending Reapa from this stranger reploid. It didn't slow down when the figure came into sight, whipping out its saber and slashing across. X leapt away, the plasma blade slicing through his coat.  
  
'Whatever you're gonna do, do it fast!' X dodged another lightning blow, flipping neatly over Shell's head, and swept the demon's feet out from under it. As soon as it fell it was already regaining its feet, but he kicked its arm, knocking the saber away, and pinned it to the floor. The machine thrashed wildly, bucking X off, throwing the small reploid into a wall. His head ringing, he just barely managed to scuttle out of the way of Shell's lunge, and leapt on it again.  
  
__________________________  
  
The shadow tensed visibly, and the air grew colder around it. Zero watched it curiously, nervously, wishing he had his saber. The shadow was an uncertain ally, if it was an ally at all.  
  
"The Mirror is going to be broken," it rasped, "But the Dead needs our help. You must help us get to the Mirror..." Zero blinked.  
  
"How do I do that?" he asked. The shadow started crawling up out of the tunnel.  
  
"You are strong enough, and we do not weigh much. You must throw us towards the Mirror. If the Ravens catch us...we will be in trouble...but there is no other way."  
  
Zero nodded slowly. He didn't know why, but what the shadow was saying made sense.  
  
__________________________  
  
Bass really had very little idea of what the heck he had done, but whatever it was, it had worked. He was locked in a struggle of his own, a struggle with a dark, faceless entity, all made of sharp edges. He had no idea how he could possibly win--it was a contest of a strange kind, and the flat drive of the machine would outlast him. To make matters worse, the limited amount of whatever kept him alive as a ghost was wearing out swiftly.  
  
He was being forced back then, and he was suddenly struck with a terrifying insight. If he lost, X would not simply be killed by the physical Shell--his body would be possessed by the true Shell itself.  
  
'You shall not!' the dry, thin voice shouted suddenly, and an ethereal shadow threw itself upon the metal monster.  
  
There was not a sound as the machine slowly crumped inwards on itself, fading and shrinking until it was as if it had never been. The Shell was just...gone.  
  
Bass wanted to find out who--and what--the shadow was, but he couldn't hold his place on that strange plane, and he fell away, crawling wearily back to a corner of X's mind. He couldn't even find a voice to proclaim victory. He was spent, fading, but he knew, at least, X would survive...and Zero was back.  
  
__________________________  
  
X had just been struggling to keep a hold on the Shell, when the demon's eyes fell shut. There was no dramatic ending for the Shell--it simply ceased to exist, leaving the body back to its rightful owner.  
  
Zero groaned lowly, forcing one eye open, and found himself staring up at a battered, panting, but smiling X. Shaking his head, he rubbed at his eyes, sitting up.  
  
"I just had THE weirdest dream. And where the heck are we?" the Red asked. X's smile widened into a grin, his eyes sparkling with moisture. It was then Zero remembered, for the second time, that he had been dead, and all thoughts of his strange dream were forgotten. Zero grinned broadly.  
  
"I get knocked down! But I get up again! Y'ain't never gonna keep me down!" he sang cheerfully. X just nodded.  
  
Then his expression faded, changing to one of shocked horror.  
  
"Bass!" he gasped, suddenly aware that the phantom was almost gone. Zero's eyes narrowed.  
  
"That unwelcome house guest been following you around? I tell ya, where are the Ghostbusters when y'need 'em..." he muttered, but X, surprising even himself, grabbed Zero's shoulders and began shaking the blonde, shook him 'till he couldn't see straight.  
  
"He is dieing!" X shouted. "For real! Don't try to tell me you don't care about your own brother, 'cuz that's bull!" Zero finally pulled away, trying to straighten out his vision.  
  
"What the heck d'you want ME to do?" he growled.  
  
"Reapa," X replied. "She ran off. She doesn't know Shell is gone. She'll know how to save him. You just have to make her." Zero nodded, stood, and set off down the empty hallway.  
  
__________________________  
  
Reapa was in her private little lab, glaring at the door and steepling her fingers. She heard footsteps outside, then the door slid open.  
  
"Shell..." she began, but stopped short when the tip of a lit saber was almost touching her throat.  
  
"Sorry, that's a girl's name. MY name's Zero. Now did you wanna try that again?" he asked. His voice was perfectly calm and casual, but his grin was bloodthirsty and his eyes were angry. She stared at him, her own eyes burning viciously.  
  
"What do you want, then?" she snarled. "Planning to kill me?" Zero appeared to consider this for a moment, then grinned.  
  
"No. Not yet, anyway. I have a better idea! I'm going to make you do the impossible again!"  
  
__________________________  
  
Zero kept Reapa at gunpoint--figuratively--the entire time.  
  
"I can't gaurantee what may happen to either one," she hissed. "Temporary amnesia, mental damage..."  
  
"Shut it," Zero interjected. This would work. It would HAVE to work.  
  
Reapa had assigned every person available to retrieving and repairing the metal body Zero had given her the coordinates to--only reploids could be sent to fetch it, of course, as the pieces had been on the bottom of the ocean. The repair job was rushed, but that could not be helped.  
  
The past two hours had drawn out unbearably, but everything was at last done. It could not be told whether or not it had worked, not until both X and Bass woke up.  
  
"I would suggest you not kill me just yet..." Reapa murmured. "Not until we find out just how this turned out..." Even though she had been forced into doing this, she was excited about it--it was simply how she was.  
  
__________________________  
  
Bass opened his eyes. For the first time in well over thirty years, he opened his crimson eyes, and inhaled.  
  
"Back in the real world..." he mumbled. He could taste the sharp, metallic edge to the air, and hear the clicking and humming of various machines, and see the glaring flourescent lights. All for real, not shadowy hand-me-down senses.  
  
He sat up, pushing his messy purple-black hair out of the way, and looked around. Zero waved, but he was clearly distracted, waiting anxiously for X to wake up.  
  
__________________________  
  
He opened his eyes and yawned, putting a hand to his mouth, and froze that way when he found himself staring into someone's face.  
  
"Umm..." he began slowly, sitting up and looking around. Wha...? He glanced at the blonde.  
  
"...do I know you?"  
  
__________________________  
  
Reapa dodged a third forceful blow from Zero.  
  
"I warned you!" she spat at the enraged Red. "I warned you it might cause temporary amnesia! TEMPORARY! BACK OFF!"  
  
Bass tapped Zero on the shoulder, and the blonde finally stopped trying to kill the girl with a sigh.  
  
"It'd BETTER be temporary..." he snarled, glaring daggers at Reapa.  
  
"If you're that impatient, you could just knock him out right now and he'll be right as rain when he wakes back up," she said with a sneer.  
  
X had been watching them in silent confusion, but now he shrunk back against the wall when Zero grinned.  
  
"I guess I get to repay you for three years ago, X!" he said, remembering when X had knocked him out to avoid an argument so long ago.  
  
CLUNK.  
  
__________________________  
  
X's head was ringing like a cathedral bell, but at least he could remember who he was now.  
  
"Wooooooooooooh...shoulda known that would happen eventually..." he held his head in his hands, but he was grinning all the same.  
  
"Hey, what goes aroun' comes aroun'!" Zero replied.  
  
"...we let Reapa get away..." Bass muttered suddenly. X shrugged, but Zero frowned.  
  
"I'd much rather keep that girl under control..."  
  
Then the building seemed to lean over with a shudder.  
  
__________________________  
  
"Nidhoggr! Destroy!" she commanded. The huge war machine screamed as it obeyed.  
  
Nidhoggr, named after the dragon of Norse mythology, was a monstrosity made of black and blue metals, three towering stories of gleaming blades and gears. It drove itself forward on a tank-tread base, and blades protruded from every metal sheet plating its body. It had four stagbeetle jaws--two great ones on the sides of its head, and two smaller ones on the top and bottom--and eight gleaming eyes. Its two long arms ended in broad, flat hands with three metal talons, and its neck could twist in any direction. It spread its gruesome jaws and inhaled deeply, drawing air through filters that seperated the oxygen from the rest of the chemicals in the air and sent it to a seperate tank. Then, fixing its eyes on the Atressa Labs building, it exhaled, and the purified oxygen was ignited into a stream of near-liquid flame, bursting the windows and eating metal into a white-hot soup.  
  
As soon as it had depleted its oxygen tank and the rush of flame stopped, it snapped its jaws closed and thrust one long arm forward, tearing through the burning wall, seeking only to rip the building apart. Of course it hadn't noticed when the trio it was actually supposed to be killing had teleported away from the destruction.  
  
__________________________  
  
"I KNEW we shoulda kept an eye on her," Zero snarled. "Now she's pulled a Wily and got a big doom-o-matic thing running around!"  
  
"Well," Bass grumbled, "Looks like we've gotta save the world. Not the most likely team I've ever have thought up--a thirty-years-dead robot, a former Crimson Demon Maverick, and a shrimpy former Hunter." He shrugged.  
  
"Fight, Megaman, for everlasting peace," Zero murmured, and grinned.  
  
__________________________  
  
Nidhoggr was not a machine capable of even animal-level intelligence, but still it seemed to gloat over the ruins of Atressa Labs Inc., its eyes sparkling and its body hunched over the wreckedge, staring down at it. Reapa walked slowly towards the smouldering rubble, when she saw the flash of a teleportation and, suddenly, the trio she had hoped to destroy were right there.  
  
"Sorry girl," Zero laughed, "But we're gonna have to put your pretty little scrapheap there out of comission." He whipped out his saber. "And YOU'RE going to be spending lots of happy-time in the darkest cell I can arrange."  
  
"Nidhoggr!" Reapa shrieked, pointing at the three, "KILL THEM!!"  
  
The murder machine swung its head around and took a deep breath, prepared to simply incinerate them, but they were already moving. Bass dashed to the left, silently wishing that he still had Treble around--wings would be useful right now--and X took to the right, his tattered coat flaring. Zero charged straight at it, whirling his saber over his head. He slashed at one of the joints between metal plates, but the blade simply rebounded off the metal. X and Bass were having the same problem with their busters--all the shots simply ricocheted harmlessly off the monster's armor. X was charging up, his buster glowing with the energy it was producing, but Bass's could not do such a thing. Nidhoggr finished his filtering and twisted his head, shooting a horizontal pillar of flames at the ebony warrior, who rushed away as quickly as he could, a huge swatch of ground that had been not just scorched but MELTED following close behind him.  
  
Zero had a sudden idea, and snatched the Triple Rod off his belt. Dashing in dangerously close, he thrust it upwards. The plasma tip was too concentrated to be simply bounced away, and it jabbed a small hole in Nidhoggr's armor. Dashing back away, Zero tossed the Triple Rod at Bass, who caught it and nodded.  
  
"Stick 'im like a pin cushion!" Zero cackled, and snatched out his saber again. But this time, he held down the secondary switch on the hilt, and the blade vanished. Instead, its plasma energy began to build up inside of it, making the hilt uncomfortably hot but not too much so to hold on to--at least not for a while. He dashed at Nidhoggr, and swung the saber straight down at the tank-tread base.  
  
The metal screamed and warped and melted as an almost cannonlike surge of energy burst free of its confines, and spikes of it bounched away upwards, punching more holes into the war machine. Nidhoggr screamed, and slashed at Zero, who danced nimbly away, charging his saber again. It seemed weird to charge a blade weapon, but it worked nontheless.  
  
X's shots were leaving sizzling dents and holes in its upper armor, Zero's saber and Bass's spear mangling the lower, and Nidhoggr began to sway. Smoke was pouring from it, but still it tried to breathe fire again, which proved to be a mistake. With a horrible shrieking noise, the oxygen tanks within it ruptured, and it itself was set aflame, screaming and melting into an unidentifiable heap of slag. Zero grinned smugly and turned around...but Reapa was long gone. He cursed for fully ten minutes, and then, turning away from the smoking wreckage of Nidhoggr, he strode over to X.  
  
"Well, we saved the world, boy!" he laughed. X, staring at the mess of metal as though he couldn't believe they had killed the thing, nodded slowly. Then Bass, surprisingly, burst out laughing.  
  
"What a welcome!" 


	5. Part I Epilogue: Medium

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy  
  
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Part I:  
  
Shell  
  
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Epilogue:  
  
Medium  
  
________________________  
  
Author's Notes: ^__________^ I promised this for peoples, and here it is! Happy!  
  
Yay for reviewer, Crystalstorm21!  
  
________________________  
  
She snapped the handheld buster up, aiming it at the narrow-faced reploid.  
  
"I think you want to change your mind right now..." she whispered dangerously, and the other slowly nodded, taking a step back.  
  
"Whatever you say..." she muttered, thoroughly intimidated by the small human girl. After all, the reploid had never been known for her bravery. Reapa smirked.  
  
"Good."  
  
________________________  
  
It wasn't a very great old place, but it was all they had been able to find for the time being. X and Zero together had enough reputation to command every lowlife in the city, and so they had eventually been able to get this place to themselves.   
  
Bass walked quietly down the hall. He hadn't been able to get to sleep, even though he was thoroughly exhausted--something kept bugging at him every time he was about to drift off.  
  
He stopped in front of the door that led to the room Zero had claimed for himself, hand half-raised towards the doorknob. He thought he heard something, very faint, from the dark room beyond.  
  
As quietly as he possibly could, he twisted the old doorknob and inched the door open, peeking inside, expecting to see Zero maybe rolled onto the floor--he remembered that the Red had had a tendancy to do that. What he saw startled him so much, he almost slammed the door back shut, but stopped himself before he could draw attention to himself. Zero was huddled up on the bed, sobbing softly to himself, his blonde hair out of its ponytail, half-hiding him under a golden veil. Bass almost said something, closed his mouth, and took a step back, before running up the hallway as softly as he could. Zero never even noticed.  
  
"X?" the ebony warrior whispered, pushing open the door to the Blue's room. X was sound asleep. Bass walked up to the side of the bed and shook him slightly.  
  
"Wake up, X," he hissed, and the Blue forced his emerald eyes open sleepily.  
  
"...wah?" he yawned, shaking his head. "What's going on?" Bass's crimson eyes flicked back over his shoulder, as though expecting Zero to have followed him down the hall.  
  
"I think...I think you should maybe go and check on Zero..." he mumbled. "...don't say I told you anything, or he'll just get stubborn..." X, hearing the concern in Bass's voice, nodded slowly and climbed out of his bed, snatching his worn indigo t-shirt from the nightstand and slipping it over his head.  
  
"Okay," he whispered, and left the room, trailing a hand on the wall idly and wondering what could be wrong.  
  
He stopped at Zero's door, putting his hand against it and peeking in through the gap left open by Bass, only to see the same thing the ebony warrior had. He pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped in.  
  
"...Zero?" he asked softly, and the blonde looked up, his blue eyes reddened around the edges. "...what's wrong?" Zero just looked away, and scrubbed at his tearstained cheeks with one hand. "C'mon Zero. What's going on?" The Red finally looked at him, blue eyes meeting green.  
  
"...I was dead, X...dead...died in your arms...and y'know what the last thing I tried to say was? I tried to say I was sorry for dieing. Sorry for making you cry. It's almost funny..." he murmured, voice almost inaudible. "When I came back, that was the first thing I really remembered. I didn't get to say I was sorry for making you cry." He paused to wipe at the tears on his face again. "Then that Shell thing was put in me, and I got trapped in a weird dream...and there was a weird shadow there. At first I thought he was the dead. But Bass was the dead he kept talking about. The shadow was friendly, but he didn't like talking...referred to himself in plurals, too. I think he was supposed to be me, if a weirded-out version. But he was cold, X, he was so cold..." Zero shivered. "I was that cold once, wasn't I? Bloodrush was so cold...I hated him. I guess I hated myself, since he was me...but was he really me?"  
  
X just listened silently to Zero's mumbling, as the Red's perfect blue eyes wandered away from his emerald green, staring off into memory. Finally, though, Zero's gaze returned to X's, and he whispered,  
  
"I don't want to be that cold." Then he threw his arms around X, holding the Blue tight and sobbing. X sat stiffly in surprise for a moment, then, slowly, wound his own arms around the blonde.  
  
"Ssssshhhh..." he whispered softly. Zero just sighed. 


	6. Chapter 1: Cheshire Grin

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy  
  
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Part II:  
  
Zcix  
  
_______________________  
  
Part II Summary: Humans have always taken their desire to know more to an excessive level...but when CyberCerebellum goes a step too far, the whole world may pay.  
  
_______________________  
  
Chapter 1:  
  
Cheshire Grin  
  
_______________________  
  
Author's Notes: Welcome to Part II, which was originally going to be Part III but, as I said before, was moved to Part II because the original Part II was changed into the ending for Part I. Be prepared for WEIRD stuff.  
  
Yay for reviewers, Iridescent Hope and Crystalstorm21! Sorry for being confusing in my last chapters...O_o didn't seem confusing to ME, but that's prolly 'cuz I wrote it. Hum.  
  
Also, I can't remember if I proofread this chapter first or not. So if you see any *really* weird errors...that means I forgot to proofread it.  
  
_______________________  
  
He opened his eyes--that was figuritive, though, because he couldn't close his eyes, therefore he could not open them--and glanced outwards from his little prison. It was wrapped around in what looked like glass, but he knew it wasn't. Whatever it was, it could stand up against just about anything he had to throw at it. Which wasn't much. The scis made sure to keep running at a low energy level at all times.  
  
He was #C685-74483. But he called himself Cix. He had meant it to be Six, but he could never remember the spelling--and the C in his number messed him up. Just about anything could mess him up, especially with his wretched dyslexia.  
  
But of course, his dyslexia wasn't the worst. He didn't really know what the worst thing in him was, but he thought it had something to do with the voices and the hallucinations. He knew they weren't real, but it was so much easier to just listen to them, pretend they were...trying to ignore them gave him headaches.  
  
He was a bellycrawler. He would grovel and kiss up to anyone. He knew he would. But it just seemed easier than trying to be assertive...and he always wanted things to be easy. Too much was hard already...reading, listening, seeing, they were all hard. All tainted. He was tainted. And it was the sci's fault.  
  
He knew he was an experiment. An experimental reploid, made to test the effects of different things on the reploid mind. He didn't know why they even cared--reploids didn't naturally get mental diseases, unless they picked up a faulty program or a system glitch somehow--but that didn't really matter. It wasn't his job to actually know anything; it was his job to be the guinea pig for all their cruel ideas.  
  
But to Cix, that didn't really matter. He had never known an outside life--heard about it, but it was the voices who told him and he didn't trust the voices--and so he didn't really know if he was missing anything. Besides, what would it matter? He couldn't get out of his little glass prison.  
  
_______________________  
  
X yawned and stretched, splayed out on the floor. Zero had knocked him out of the bed AGAIN last night, it seemed. The Red had the annoying habit of thrashing around in his sleep.  
  
It had been a full year since Reapa, the granddaughter of ol' Dr. Wily himself, had rebuilt Zero in an attempt to possess an ultimate war machine. A rather uneventful year, at that. They were still hiding in the lowlife sections of town, but now that they were known, they had the entire section of the city at their beck and call. Neither X nor Bass could think of anyway to solve the dilemma of Zero's fearsome reputation from four years past, which had not faded but GROWN from the time of inactivity, and Zero himself seemed to find it amusing. At the very least, he offered no solutions.  
  
What time was it...? A quick glance out the window told him nothing but that it was still dark outside. He grumbled, about to pick himself up, when something VERY heavy landed full on him, flattening him onto the floor. His breath eluded him as he squirmed in an attempt to escape.  
  
"Z...ro...off...me...!" he gasped, struggling with the blonde, who was sound asleep. Zero mumbled something unintelligable, rolling off of X, and wrapped an arm around the Blue's shoulders, pulling him up against him.  
  
"...yeah. Guess we get to spend a night on the floor..." X rolled his eyes, wishing the Red had at least pulled a blanket off the bed with him. Zero mumbled again, but the sound came out as a muffled whimper, and his grip around X tightened. The blonde was trembling, though it was barely noticeable, even with X as he was, held so tight against Zero's bare chest. In the lack of light, the tattoo on Zero's shoulder--the Wily deathshead skull--was just a dark splotch against his paler skin. The blonde shivered again, and X looked at his troubled face, framed with strands of messy gold. Nightmares had become all-too-common for Zero as of late.  
  
_______________________  
  
He knew he was dreaming--he always knew in this nightmare--but that didn't help. The reigns for this dream were in someone else's hands, and he knew whose. The shadow.  
  
The shadow had kept returning--it was just the memory of the shadow, not the true thing, at least he didn't think it was--and Zero's experiance in the Shell-induced world was replayed countless times. Again and again, he heard the metallic creaking of ancient gears, wings of ragged strips of silver-shot-ebony tore through a sky that reflected each mockery feather perfectly, a great mirror dome folded over the landscape. Again and again, he stared into the flat gems that passed for the mechanical raven's eyes, eyes which did nothing but reflect the blasted wasteland of black and silver around them, shallow and gleaming. Over and over their booming, prerecorded voices told him not to look at the sky, over and over he was thrown forward as one's claws scraped his helmet off, over and over he was thrown down a choked tunnel by a vague, ethereal form. But in these dreams, things sometimes changed, as well. Always for the worst.  
  
This time, there had been no shadow to drag him towards sanctuary. He had kept running across the barren, metallic landscape, until all the ravens were gone--many's wings had simply given out on them, and all the rest were simply not fast enough, their ancient bodies slowed by rust and wear. But there was nowhere to go, just an endless, unchanging landscape. And he kept falling--over and over again he would trip clumsily over shards of metal, fall, and the edges would snatch at him, scrape along his armor, leave bright red lines wherever it bit through. He couldn't see straight, and he was leaving a broad trail of crimson when the shadow from before finally appeared. But this time the shadow was not friendly--this time it sported metal wings, held to its transparent form by silvery chains linked across its chest over and over, and its dry voice was seething with cold death.  
  
"You're a fool," it hissed. "We were waiting for you, but you ran right past without seeing us, fool. You do not care to look at us? You think you can escape from this place without the help of such a horrible thing as us? That is a mistake you will regret." He didn't understand what it was saying--it hadn't been there, where it was supposed to be!  
  
"You're the one who wasn't there!" he yelled at it, his voice strained. He was exhausted, and battered, and afraid. "You were supposed to be way back there!" The shadow hissed and took a step closer, and the air around Zero became so cold, his every panting breath turned into a thick cloud of mist in front of him.  
  
"We saw you run on past us," it whispered. Its brittle voice seemed to snap over each syllable like dead twigs underfoot. "You were supposed to look for us, fool, not just take for granted that we would be generous and offer our help. You must WANT us to help you."  
  
"I didn't even know there was anyone in this deadland but me the first time!" he argued. The shadow laughed at him, a sound he would have just as soon not heard--it was like buzzing locusts, sharp and annoying.  
  
"You did know...you knew we were there. You just didn't realize you knew." Suddenly, it shouted, in Zero's own voice, "I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE!" Zero's tired eyes widened. Had he shouted that? The run from the ravens had been a twisted blur, and he may very well have been demanding such a strange thing. But...  
  
"...who are you? What are you? Are you me?" he whispered then, shaking. His legs were threatening to buckle from exhaustion.  
  
"..."   
  
"ANSWER ME!!" he screamed, cursing viciously at the shadow. "WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?!"  
  
"...we're more than one because we are you and we aren't you. We're both." Zero just stared at this confusing answer.  
  
"Don't you even have a name for yourself?" he growled. He hadn't meant to growl, but his tongue was being uncooperative. Then the shadow grinned. It was a cheshire grin, the place where the shadow's mouth should have been suddenly splitting broadly to show sharp silver fangs, gleaming wickedly. And he could see the shadow, and he rocked back, stumbling and falling on his rump, unconsciously trying to escape what the shadow was.  
  
"We were given the name Bloodrush," the former shadow said, laughing its locust-buzz laugh. Zero turned and ran, ran from himself, himself with eyes of frozen steel and a psychotic grin, a face that was painted with madness. Zero had been put face to face with what remained of his former self, that wretched monster which had been finally chased away--he had thought it was gone, but here it was, grinning like a horror-movie sadist, wearing wings of twisted metal in imitation of a demon.   
  
Zero was already exhausted, and it wasn't long before he lost his footing on a slope of metal and rolled the rest of the way down the steep hill, jarred to a stop when a spine of metal stabbed itself into the crease between shoulder and breastplate.  
  
Bloodrush never descended upon him, however. The psychotic memory faded back to a shadow, grin leaving last in a fanged parody of the cheshire cat, and walked away. He left Zero to the ravens.  
  
_______________________  
  
Zero awoke with a strangled cry, automatically shoving away whatever it was that had been so close to him. X squealed as he was thrown halfway across the room, hitting the ground with a thud and skidding to a stop.  
  
"And a good morning to you, too!" the Blue grumbled, getting up and snatching his faithful--if a bit threadbare--old indigo t-shirt off of its usual chair. Zero sighed and stood up slowly.  
  
"Sorry X. Thought you were a raven." X's gaze softened.  
  
"You had that dream again, huh?" he asked quietly. It was a stupid question, of course; Zero had been having that dream practically every night as of late.  
  
"Worse," the Red replied. "Things were different this time. Our old shadow friend wasn't there...it showed up later though." Zero shivered. "Wearing fake wings like it thought it was some kinda fairy. It accused me of running right past it, taking its generousity for granted. ...and it told me its name this time...and showed me its face." X already knew what was coming.  
  
"It was Bloodrush, wasn't it," he murmured. Zero looked up, surprised.  
  
"Yeah, grin and all," he replied. "How did you know...?" X shrugged.  
  
"It wasn't all that hard to figure out...me and Bass have suspected for a long while that you were being haunted by Bloodrush." Zero considered this, gazing off into the distance, and suddenly snapped his blue gaze back to X's green.  
  
"Hey, you've been telling Bass about my dreams?" he asked angrily. X rolled his eyes with exhasperation.  
  
"When will you get it? Bass is your brother. He has every right to know what's going on with his only remaining family." Zero muttered something to the effect that reploids don't really have families, to which X deemed no reply but a snort was required.  
  
_______________________  
  
Cix was shaking in his little glass prison. A Bad Thing was going to happen soon. One of the voices had told him, and even though he usually didn't trust those voices, he thought this one was telling the truth--the scis were going to do another Bad Thing to him. Only this Bad Thing was going to be terrible, far worse than any of the other Bad Things.  
  
All the twisted experiments, the wretched mind games, the horrible tests--they were all Bad Things. This one was going to be an experiment Bad Thing...and it would be the last one. The voice had told him it would be the last one, the one that would finally make or break him--he had to beat the scis. He didn't know how he was supposed to beat them--they excelled at this game they played, they were the masters of the board and there were no rules--but if he did...if he did, the scis would pay. They would pay for every single Bad Thing they had done to him. And if he lost... That thought would not complete itself, for Cix's mind could not comprehend what the voice had told him. It was worse than any Bad Thing, however.  
  
He was excited, in a frightened way, about this final Bad Thing. It could mean the end--it could mean the end of the torture. Or it could mean the very beginning... 


	7. Chapter 2: Twice

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy  
  
______________________  
  
Part II:  
  
Zcix  
  
______________________  
  
Chapter 2:  
  
Twice  
  
______________________  
  
Author's Notes: Things are going to get steadily weirder now. NOW is the time to scare away half my readers! Cix is so much fun.  
  
Yay for reviewers, Kaya Kyra and Crystalstorm21! Sorry I took so long writing this!  
  
I have a picture of Cix, but whenever I try to put the address in, FF.net has major issues...so you'll have to take the spaces out yourself: www . boomspeed . com / psychodragon / Zcix.png  
  
______________________  
  
They were getting bored with their game. They were always bored, it seemed--there were so few things they could do as they were. They needed an outlet, some way to get back in power. But he was too strong, even if he was afraid of them. Maybe if they had tried to be helpful instead of harmful...but he wouldn't have trusted them, would've been suspicious. Too cold. They needed to find someone weaker, someone who wasn't...  
  
'Killer.' Silver fangs bared in a cheshire grin, they turned their gaze up to their mirror sky.  
  
______________________  
  
He was awake again, staring out of his glass prison. The Bad Thing had already happened. But had he won? He couldn't tell. He didn't think he had lost though...not yet. The board was not yet cleared. The winner was not yet decided.  
  
Seven minutes. He counted seven minutes. One more than him. He was only six...six minutes? Was he? Was that his number meant? No. That meant he was the sixth. No, it didn't, it was just a serial number...it didn't mean anything. What meant something was that the voices were quiet. They had been for a long while now. What had scared the voices?  
  
Ten minutes. Three too many. Too many? Something was supposed to have happened now. His thoughts churned like an engine in the mud--splattering it all over the place but going nowhere, and getting steadily more clogged. He whined, curling up.  
  
And then the frightening thing showed up. Cix was almost dissapointed to hear it was a voice--a new voice, certainly, but still just a voice.   
  
The voice started cursing.   
  
'This is messed up! Where the heck am I?! Who are you?! What's going on?! What happened to me?!' it shrieked at him. Cix sighed. This was a stupid voice, it seemed. He ignored the suggestion of a hallucination that tweaked in the corner of his vision.  
  
'You're a voice and I'm Cix,' he said blandly. 'You're not much of a Bad Thing...'  
  
'Voice? What the--'  
  
'I hear voices in my head,' Cix explained tiredly. 'The scis made me crazy. You're a voice, and I have to listen to you because the scis make me...'  
  
'I ain't a voice in nobody's head,' it responded angrily. 'I'm--'  
  
'Will you please be quiet?' Cix interrupted again. That proved to be a mistake, when the voice suddenly exploded into full view in his mind's eye, its eyes a furious blue, its angular face framed in a disturbingly pretty fashion by a mane of golden blonde hair. It was decked up in red armor, and held a lit saber.  
  
'SHUT UP, YOU PSYCHO!!!' it screamed. 'I AIN'T A VOICE IN NO CRAZY PERSON'S HEAD!'  
  
______________________  
  
"How did the experiment go?" the first scientist asked. The second was studying a computer, which was spewing scrolling lines of blue-numbered data across its black screen.  
  
"It seems to be a success," he said. "The copy has become active, and has already tried to force #C-6 into submission. It has also been demanding to know what happened." The first scientist nodded calmly.  
  
"Excellent. What do you think we should do with #C-6 now?" he asked. The second shrugged.  
  
"Destroy it. With a dual mind, it is too unstable, and Zero has too much fighting prowess. It is undoubtable that his copy will figure out a way to use the #C-6 to escape." The first nodded again.  
  
"Alright then. How goes the other experiment?" The second turned his attention to a clipboard, shuffling through its papers.  
  
"Just as well. Mass-producing copied control chips proves to be very easy." The first nodded yet again.  
  
"Good."  
  
______________________  
  
X yawned broadly, climbing up the fire escape ladder. He wasn't sure why he had decided to go up the side of the building instead of going inside--you could get to the roof either way--but he was. Climbing up top, he saw Zero laying sprawled across the flat metal/concrete hybrid roof, staring up at the bleary sky.  
  
"Hey Z-man," the Blue said, calling the Red's attention. "Why y'up here?" Zero turned his gaze back to the sky, studying it distantly.  
  
"...I've got a bad feeling...something weird..." he muttered. X sighed.  
  
"I never thought you were one to have premonitions," he said dryly. Zero glared at him.  
  
"I'm serious. There's something wrong going on..."  
  
______________________  
  
It had been quite a fight, of an unnatural order, but in the end, it was a draw. One was powerful, but the other was the original possessor--Cix stood against everything the "voice" could throw at him. He didn't think it was a voice anymore. The scis really HAD done a Bad Thing...they had put another person in his head, a real one this time.  
  
'Zcix,' Cix said. 'A compromise. Half and half. But you have to get me out of the prison.' The involuntary invader considered.  
  
'...fine,' he muttered.  
  
He began going over again what had happened. He had been rushing in to Sigma's fortress, guns blazing...there had been someone with him. Who was it...? His memory was fuzzy, and he thought it was Cix's fault. Cix's head was all messed up--he blamed "the scis" for that--and it seemed to echoe in his. Every time he tried to go over again what had happened, another piece was missing, or distorted and incomprehendable. He knew he had been killed, though. Whoever had brought him back...had a sick sense of humor.  
  
He turned his attention to the task at hand. He was not pleased with what he had to work with here...Cix's body was kept almost perpetually at a very low energy level, he had no real weapons at his disposal, and he wasn't built to be strong...his body was a cross between reptillian and rodent, thin and long, his narrow head on a long neck, his body flexable but not really much else. His armor was very light.   
  
He didn't have time to stratigize. The door was slid open, and the instant the scis stepped inside, Zcix--both--knew that something bad was going to happen. The scis had an air to them, an air of death. His death. Oh yes.  
  
______________________  
  
"What happened?!" demanded the leading scientist, practically shaking with rage. "Imbeciles! All of you! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?!" The one scientist surviving from those who had entered #C-6's chamber--and he was lucky to be surviving, ripped open as he had been found--shook violently as he ran over what happened again.  
  
"We entered the room, prepared to terminate #C-6," he began, his voice thin and trembling, "and it shattered its containment. I don't know how it managed with its energy so low. It attacked us and killed the other two, then it ran off down the hallway. I don't know which direction it went." The head scientist knew, however. #C-6 had gotten into another chamber, one that had been experimenting with teleportation, and had gotten itself away.  
  
______________________  
  
He didn't really know where he was. He just knew that he remembered these coordinates, remembered them very well, they were burned into his mind with a feverish perfection, burned in while everything else was spinning madly, he was spinning and he couldn't slow down. He lay sprawled across the ground, feeling as though he had been wrenched inside out, his head ringing and his sight blurred. Those scis, who had been working on the weirded out teleporter, they should die. That thing was horrible. All those scis should die. They had screwed him up, screwed him up badly. Wasn't he actually two people? Cix and Z. That was who he was now, just Z. What was his full name? What was his name? He couldn't remember his name. He was just Z. Just...Z...  
  
'We've gotta get outta here,' he thought. 'Why do we have to get out of here? Because here is dangerous. They might find us here. We have to find someplace safe. Where's safe? With us. With us? How do we be with us? We're here, aren't we? No, there's more, there's more, we think...' He couldn't make heads or tails of his own thoughts, only knew that it was important that he find himself. Find himself? It was important and he didn't understand it but he would do it anyway. He would do it because he had to. His job wasn't to understand. His job was to...to find...who was he supposed to find? Himself? No, not himself. Someone. He had to find someone, someone like him, but they were different...different now...once they were the same but not now...not now...  
  
______________________  
  
Zero was uncomfortable. No, he was more than uncomfortable, he was downright disturbed. He kept feeling like something terrible was on the verge of happening...  
  
"Come on, Zero, just calm down," X said tiredly. He wanted to sleep, but with Zero tossing and turning as he was, it was very difficult. The Red sighed and tried to keep still, but...  
  
______________________  
  
'Closer, we're closer now, we know it, we're closer,' his thoughts had been running in a continuous stream, save for when a Voice interrupted them with its mad, wailing demands.   
  
He couldn't remember who he was now--Z or Cix, or maybe he could only be both now, his name was Zcix now and he couldn't remember where had he come from what had he forgotten why couldn't he remember...  
  
"Who's there?" someone called. Not a Voice, a real person--a real person had found him knew he was there...  
  
"No..." he hissed, hunching his shoulders, staring from the dark crevice he had himself in. The night had frightened him away, and he had taken refuge in an empty old building...but now it wasn't empty.  
  
______________________  
  
Bass had known there was something lurking in this place as soon as he had looked up at the glassless windows, staring breathlessly out at the street below them, but he hadn't expected what he'd found--the beastish reploid staring fearfully out at him, a concoction of red and blue metal, hissing and lashing its tail, tapping the floor with a metal paw.  
  
"Who're you?" he asked, keeping his distance from the cornered reploid. It was likely dangerous, and in only a black sweater and jeans, he wasn't exactly dressed for battle.  
  
"Not, who...what?" the response was garbled and confused, the voice distorted as though it either had no synthesizer or else it had since been broken. "Who...we...six six six..."  
  
"...Six?" Bass prompted, questioning, ignoring the usual meaning of the number "666."  
  
"No!" it gasped, claws scraping against the floor, tearing gouges in the ratty old carpet. "Not! Zcix. We are Zcix." It stumbled awkwardly forward. "Know we know...you...know..."  
  
______________________  
  
Bass, Bass, Zcix knew this mysterious person was Bass. Bass was dead but he was right here and where did he remember him from where where where...  
  
"You...you know where he is," the ratlizard hissed, stretching out his long neck, staring at the ebony fellow before him. "You know you know you know! Show me!"  
  
He wasn't really thinking, just reacting to what the voice in his head screamed over and over--'HE KNOWS HE KNOWS HE KNOWS'--when he pounced on Bass, knocking him over like an overexcited dog, claws tearing jagged holes in his dark shirt. He stared down at him, his whip-tail twitching back and forth.  
  
"Come, show!"  
  
______________________  
  
Zero woke up somewhere around midnight, on the floor as per usual. He stood slowly, stretching, and considered getting back in bed for a moment...he glanced down at X with a slight smile. The smaller reploid was curled up under the covers, sound asleep and not making a whisper of noise as his chest rose and fell steadily, one arm stretched across the empty half of the bed where Zero had previously been. Idly Zero ruffled the Blue's eternally-messy hair; X was a sound sleeper, and there was no way just that would wake him up.  
  
Zero was in a strangely good mood, considering he had just fallen out of the bed for the umpteenth time in a row. And considering that hissing, annoyingly prophetic hunch that something bad was on its way towards him, like a storm boiling up just out of sight.  
  
The blonde shrugged his shoulders against the thought, making a valiant attempt to banish it but succeeding in only suppressing the ominous feeling. Snatching one of the shirts hanging on the back of a chair--it was X's, he could tell even in the dark, but bah, X wouldn't care--he pulled it over his head. It being marginally too small, he almost strangled himself with it on accident, but he managed getting it on anyway. Why he wanted to wear a shirt so tight it almost asphixiated him, he didn't know, but he didn't even consider taking it off in favor of a bigger one. He stretched again, looking out the window at the calmly dark sky.  
  
Then, of course, things got bad.  
  
______________________  
  
Bass thought it was probably a mistake to give in to the psychotic reploid's cryptic demands, but it was either that or be pinned under it 'till morning.  
  
"And this is why you don't wander around the streets after midnight," he muttered to himself. Zcix either didn't hear or didn't care, as it was focused entirely on the building they had arrived at. Even though he thought Zcix might qualify as male, Bass still found himself referring to the ratlizard as "it."  
  
The Ebony stopped in front of the door, tapping it lightly. No answer. Of course, who was gonna get the door at half past midnight anyway?  
  
"Open up, ya lousy conj'rer!" he spat at the door, which clicked loudly and swung open. Zero had made up THAT little phrase--the previous password had stopped working, and the Red had been having a fit, trying everything he could think of to make the thing open up.  
  
He stepped through the door, and Zcix tripped over the doorframe as it followed.  
  
"Watch your step," Bass said dryly, and the lizard snarled at him.  
  
"Lousy sense of humor, Bass," it hissed, and the Ebony froze.  
  
"Whatha--how'd you know my name?" he growled, whirling on the reploid...only to find it wasn't there. He could hear its metallic paws clattering up the stairs behind him, and he spun about, chasing after the beast. "COME BACK HERE!!"  
  
Then he heard an uthearthly sound, one that stopped him cold in his tracks. It was a wild, terrified howl, and he recognized the voice--which made it all the more unnatural.  
  
"ZERO!" he dashed madly up the stairs, throwing himself into the room, immidiately grabbing the ratlizard reploid's tail, hauling it backwards sharply.  
  
______________________  
  
X's eyes had snapped open at a bloodcurdling, deafening screech, and he'd found himself caught in the middle of chaos. The next thing he knew, an overly-pale, trembling Zero was clinging to him like his life depended on it, and Bass had a weird mechanical thing that looked half rodent and half reptile by its tail. The strange thing was gibbering in a high, broken voice, futilely struggling in Bass's grip. The Ebony dropped it quickly when it twisted back on itself like a snake, sinking small teeth into his hand. It used the moment Bass spent cursing and gripping his torn hand to run straight over him, knocking him to the ground as it hurled itself down the stairs with a wild scream, crashing in a tangle at the base, and yowling again before vanishing through the open door.  
  
______________________  
  
He staggered once he had gotten far enough away...away from HIM...  
  
'Why why why why?' The one with the golden hair, that was him--no, it wasn't him! He was Z, Zcix, that wasn't him...but it was, but it wasn't, the same, different, he thought his mind was going to tear itself apart! How could he be two people?!  
  
Zcix was barely aware he had collapsed, shaking, in a side alley, completely vulnerable. He didn't even realize he'd been approached, until a thick talon had wrapped chokingly about his neck, dragging him away down the alley.  
  
______________________  
  
X had given up on repeating "just calm down" over and over like some broken record. There was no way on Earth Zero was calming down right now, so the Blue did the only thing that seemed to help at all; he held Zero close to him, cradled against his bare chest, stroking his unbound golden hair. Bass had already left, hunting after that...thing that'd caused this. And all the while, X was locked deep in thought. Something strange had happened there, something way more than an unknown reploid breaking into the room. Something that Zero couldn't handle. What was it about the ratlizard that had terrified him so? 


	8. Chapter 3: Bad Promise

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part II: 

Zcix

* * *

Chapter 3: 

Bad Promise

* * *

Author's Notes: Wahaaaaa! FEAR ME! 

Yay for reviewers, neo x, Gamegirl2, Crystalstorm21, and Celena Schezar!

* * *

_ Killer._

_ Twice?_

_ Go for it._

They laughed madly. They'd made a break for it. They'd left their old..._friend_...a trembling heap, but why should they care? Zero had outlived his usefullness to their cause. If they had a cause, that was. Mostly...they were just bored.

_ Go for it!_

_ Might not work, Killer._

_ Shut it, Twice._

Killer and Twice. There used to be just Killer, of course, but that had been before the..._Shell_...had shown up. Weird stuff'd been going on, and before Killer had known it...there was Twice, the brother they'd never wanted. They were one entity, of course, but they could think seperately. And still thought of themselves as more than one each.

_ You always come up with the stupid ideas,_ Twice warned in a muttered hiss. A voice empty of all passion, a bone-dry, silky purr. The only vague suggestion of living desires in that voice was a hollow thirst, a thirst for chaos and blood. The days of Bloodrush, the days of the easy killing, were over. They'd left Zero behind, torn themselves free of the dark corner of his mind, the moment the..._other_...had come close.

_ Our ideas aren't stupid._

* * *

She looked down at the reploid with some amount of disdain. 

"Those incompetant worms got ahold of him, and now look! He's practically useless. He's a wreck," Reapa muttered, pacing back and forth. The diminutive girl's tirade was watched over by a silent mechination, maroon eyes burning lowly in the dim light. He could not truly be called a reploid; that would imply he had free will. Created with the Shell program from the start, he had his own mind, his own personality...but any of his desires could be overridden by a simple command from his Master.

"Dice, are you listening to me?" Reapa demanded harshly, and the robot blinked, taking a moment to run his long, thin fingers through his rust-colored hair.

Dice was a bat with charcoal-gray fur, the inside of his wings deepening to pure black. He was thin but not all together too tall, and a whiplike tail drooped on the ground behind him. He closed his maroon eyes sleepily.

"Sorry, Master...haven't had any shuteye in a long while now..." he murmured. His voice was thick, and deeper than his slight frame would've given the impression of.

"Well, keep awake," she snapped viciously. "We'll be going to destroy those fools that ruined my copy of Zero..." She cast her angry gaze back on the trembling, twitching metal creature that lay on the floor. She hadn't even bothered to restrain him; he didn't even seem capable of moving. Paralyzed by his own mind. _Pathetic._

Zcix's thoughts were in a jumble, but he was far from paralyzed. He was listening, listening closely...very, very, _very_ closely.

_A copy. She said we're a copy. A copy of Zero...the golden-haired one...he was Zero...we're just a copy...that's...why..._ Suddenly, he lost all grip on consciousness in a fit of sweet, black despair._

* * *

We told you our idea wasn't stupid._

_ Your ideas are always stupid...this one's just less stupid._

_ You're the stupid one._

_ We aren't stupid!_

As soon as they had finished their pointless argument, Killer opened the eyes of the ratlizard. Vision that was distorted, ruined, shot through with unreal things, like ghosts in the corners of their eyes. Trying to look directly at the apparitions only made them dizzy.

"Rrrrrrrr..." they muttered, and Reapa's gaze snapped over to the reploid that was now crouched in a feral stance. "Rrrrrrrrreapa...rrrrrrememberrrrr...usssss?" They drew their words into a long drawl deliberately, laughing in a dead-cold voice.

"What?" the small woman asked sharply, but suddenly she was buried under a pile of ratlizard reploid, claws tearing into her skin, teeth snapping at her face. With a horrid shriek she kicked and struggled, but it was futile...until the mechanation was pulled roughly into the air by a cool-eyed Dice. The bat looked utterly unconcerned, even when he saw that Reapa's face had been marred with several long, deep gashes that spilled bright crimson. He sighed, holding the squirming Zcix/Killer-Twice by the back of the neck.

"That was predictable," he murmured boredly, then rapped his thin hand over the back of the ratlizard's head, knocking consciousness from the possessed metal beast in one swift blow._

* * *

See? Your idea was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. You didn't even kill her._

_ Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!_

_ Stuuuuuuupid, stuuuuuuuu—_

A sound of a different kind suddenly shattered the mirror-sky of the empty domain. A high, thin, breathless wail, that died off into warbling sobs before finally silencing altogether.

The vague phantom that was a mere suggestion of the image of form, the essence of Bloodrush, the Killer, was alone. Shards of red glass glittered on the ground.

* * *

The bloodied, bandaged woman would certainly not let that mauling be any sort of a setback. 

"That just proves he has some vague fighting spirit left in him," Reapa hissed excitedly. Dice, had he been more of the concerned type, might've told her she should wait a while until she recovered before working on such a big project. But she had it almost completed, had started it a long while back, and Dice really didn't care if Reapa jumped off a bridge. He did what she said, and otherwise, he couldn't care less what she did with herself.

There was a slight _clink_ as she slid the final piece into place. Its place on the new, empty body she had made.

Reapa truly was a master of her craft. The form, made to house the copy of Zero, looked almost identical to the original. The eyes were slightly murkier, perhaps, the frame perhaps an inch or so taller...but those were minor details. To any but the most scrutinous observation, the copy would have appeared to be the original Zero himself.

"Any type of a fighter's spirit will be useful. And with the state he's in, convincing him to serve me shouldn't be too hard..." she'd learned her lesson about installing the Shell into reploids which already had a mind of their own when Zero somehow broke free of it. But that wouldn't stop her from trying other methods to tame a reploid...

Dice considered warning Reapa of what the reploid was likely to do, once he awoke in a completely different body. But then, with a shrug, he simply moved further away, picking up his thick helmet from where he'd dropped it on the ground. It was fashioned after a wolf's skull, of pure black metal. He slipped it over his head and casually shifted his stance, readying himself for the possibility of battle._

* * *

What are you? You don't belong here, no. Go away. This place is too crowded already. Go away!_ Zcix howled inside his head, but he doubted he could chase away this newest invader. The Killer was too strong. They were too strong, too old, too accustomed to being a mental parasite. 

_Shut up,_ the Killer replied in a low hiss. Their voice was meant to be frightening, imposing. Their icy, shadowy form, an ethereal suggestion, loomed and laughed.

But they didn't count on the reaction of the cornered, maddened thoughts of Zcix. Didn't count on the final fact that Zcix still was half Zero, however out of order that Zero may have become. The Killer didn't even have the chance to howl, suddenly shattered by an unexpected blow, a blow given strength by fear and rage. The final remnants of the age-old Bloodrush were shattered...but they scattered poisoned drops of violence everywhere. A bad promise that Bloodrush's legacy was not quite done.

* * *

Zero looked out the window, into the daylight, with a sour expression on his face.

"And you didn't want to believe me," he said harshly, and X just sighed.

"Look, Zero, I said I was sorry. Do you really need to keep griping about it?" the Blue asked. Zero was silent, and when he did speak again, it was not in reply.

"What d'you think that thing was...?" he muttered, mostly to himself. "Way too familiar...dunno why..." X had no answer to that one.


	9. Chapter 4: Insane Machine

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part II:  
Zcix

* * *

Chapter 4:  
Insane Machine

* * *

Author's Notes: Alright people. I was kin'a hoping people would have enough manners that I wouldn't have to make this a public anouncement but...  
_Do not review my story and advertise your own. Yes, Gamey, I count your review as implied advertising and it is not appreciated.  
_That taken care of, yay for reviewers, arken elf, neo x, and Crystalstorm21! And Arken, thanks muchly for the fanart! :3 It's always great to know people appreciate stuff you do.  
Also, if you wanna understand what Zero's mad-memories are going on about, you need to read _Bloodrush: Icy Submergence_.

* * *

The silence stretched on interminably. It was a staring match, between the diminutive human girl, the tall copy reploid. Neither had moved for five minutes since Zcix sat up, but finally the reploid spoke, his voice low and trembling.

"You changed us." It was not an accusation, not really, just a confused statement of the obvious. Reapa grinned and nodded sharply, her eyes burning with enthusiasm—but she also prudently took a step further away from the insane machine. Zcix's murkyish eyes narrowed, as his suspicious gaze traveled down his own form. Tall, fair skinned, long golden hair unbound and trailing down his shoulders to pile on the table beneath him. "You made us look like _him_. The real Zero." Reapa blinked; she hadn't expected the broken-minded reploid to realize it so quickly. She made a mental note that just because Zcix was crazy didn't mean he couldn't think.

"Yes," she answered finally, now backing further away. Zcix watched her with a disturbing intensity, and something dark fluttered in that blue gaze. "You were originally made to be just like Zero. I couldn't stop those people from doing the things they did to you, but I intend to try my hardest to fix what I can." That was a lie, of course. She had no intentions of ever attempting to decipher the mess that Zcix's mind had become. "But...I want you to do something for me, first." Now it was the reploid's turn to shrink away; too often, the things people wanted him to do—be they Voices or scis—had been rather terrible ideas. But there was also something...strangely alluring...he shook his head, trying to get his jumble of disjointed thoughts together and failing miserably. So he remained silent and watched her.

"I'm going to be frank with you. I want you to kill. I want you to kill your original," she hissed, but then her eyes widened. Zcix was suddenly not so far away, had stood up—she hadn't even seen him stand up; just how fast was he?—and was staring down at her, eyes dark and strange.

"You want us to kill Zero. Or do you just want us to die? Zero would just destroy us. You know that," he whispered, hands clenched tightly at his sides. There was danger in the tone of his voice, clear warning. "His armor, his weapon, his skills...all far surpass our own." She shook her head quickly, backing further away. There was a wall behind her; that wasn't very fortunate.

"I made you new armor, a new weapon," she replied, gesturing off to the left, hoping to draw his attention, his terrible gaze, away from her for just a moment. It worked; he looked away, and she slipped out from against the wall, moving around behind him, keeping her distance. "See for yourself," she urged, and he did, curious.

The armor was dark, gray and blue, a sleek design that reminded Zcix of a blade. Each plate ended in a dangerously sharp edge, alternating panels of navy-blue and charcoal-gray, hinged cleverly to make the whole thing flexable as a snake's hide. No undersuit; the stuff was exceedingly thin, and would cover his entire body. He picked the helmet up off the shelf and studied it, while somewhere in the back of his mind he marveled at the sudden silence—as though the cold, smooth metal chased away the demons and Voices in his head. It was black, gleaming darkly, with streaks of gray and blue gracing the crest. Into the front was set a gem of vicious yellow-green, an acidic color that caught the light and sent it back in a myriad of shards and flecks. As the center crest neared the back of the helmet, it split into two, peaking upwards suddenly and stretching back. _Like wings..._

"I named it the Bladebane Armor," Reapa said suddenly, and he whirled around, the helmet clutched tightly. If it really was chasing the Voices away, then he never wanted to let it go, and suddenly became frightened that Reapa, for whatever reason—he didn't worry about reasons—might try to take it. The small woman just kept on talking, however, clearly not interested in even approaching him.

"The weapon," she said, pointing behind him once more, lower this time, "is called the RiotSword." He looked back over his shoulder, then abruptly whirled down into a crouch, snatching the indicated device off the shelf. The inactive hilt was obsidian-black, with a dark gray band wrapt 'round the middle of it. It was slender, with a bright yellow gem set in the pommel of the hilt... an almost delicate-appearing weapon. Tightening his grip on it, he jumped when the sabre burst to life, the energy rushing out like a spout of flame. Flame indeed; the neon yellow blade rippled, rising up like a line of fire, and the heat of it was intense. He almost dropped the thing from the pure heat it gave off!

"The RiotSword is not a traditional sabre," she laughed at his surprised look. "Its energy class is completely different from a plasmic beamsabre. I've been experimenting with this new form of energy for a while. I've called it solaric...for obvious reasons." On impluse, he tested the blade, flicking his wrist, making a flaming yellow arc appear in the air. He snapped it back the other way, twisting his arm about and driving it straight forward in a quick strike at thin air. Then he grinned, not even aware of it.

"A solaric sabre...RiotSword..." he muttered. Then his darkened gaze settled on Reapa once more, and he pulled the Bladebande helmet onto his head quickly. The tiny woman took a step back, suddenly wary, but she wasn't back far enough. A breathless scream filled the small room and surrounding hallways as the blade of her own creation burned a hole through her black heart.

* * *

Dice snickered slightly, trotting through the twisted hallways. Reapa hadn't even noticed when he had slipped away, and he was quite glad; he didn't want to be back there, facing the menace that the girl had unleashed. The Silencer was not a toy, and throwing it at the last second into the Bladebande helmet had been a foolish mistake.

He knew the Silencer better than anyone. He was the experiment of the Silencer. It was built into his helmet, and into his body, improving its effect to the point that he could, at the cost of a dangerously great amount of his system's energy, create a field of Silence.

The Silencer's design was not simple, nor was its function. It blocked key signals, disrupting their normal path, and created an isolation in the mind of a reploid—or, in Dice's case, a half-reploid. For Dice, it made him distant to all forms of pain, pleasure, or any emotion at all; he could, in effect, change himself from a feeling half-reploid into a cold, calculating robot. In the instant it took him to make the mental command for it to activate, he would transform from a thinking creature into a machine of battle. If he created the field of it, the sudden, completely unexpected transition in the mind of a fully reploid mechination could be terribly destructive, causing, at fullest power, a complete shutdown as systems made a frantic attempt to re-route signals in order to restore proper working order.

But the weaker Silencer installed in the Bladebande helmet...what effect would that have? On a psychotic, tortured reploid like the Zero-copy, it was not likely to be a good one.

His train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt when a hulking black shape loomed out of the darkness, immidiately snatching him by the collar of his thick ash-gray cloak. He was lifted off his clawed feet with ease, and a pair of bloodruby eyes stared into his own deep maroon. The dark character was large enough to block most of the light, but Dice's huge eyes were made for the night—the reploid's black armor, the helmet with the odd cobra hood, even the strange purple stripes stretching from eyes to jaw, were all perfectly visible to him. His ears layed back, and he subtly wound his long tail around the intruder's ankle.

"Excuse me," the black-armored reploid said, voice and expression strangely calm for the fact that he had the bat by the throat. "But I think that a certain reploid creature I'm hunting was taken here. A blue and red rat-lizard. You haven't happened to've seen it, have you?" It was clear by the look in his eyes that he was dead-certain that Dice _had_ seen the machine. The bat took only a split second to decide what to say, then a grin spread underneath his black wolfskull helmet.

"Why yes. Of course, the copy-Zero—or 'the rat-lizard' as you called him—is no longer inhabiting that body. Reapa built him a new one...she was a stupid little girl, I'm sure you know...Bass." He snickered as the Ebony's gleaming eyes narrowed. Of course Reapa had told her creation of her hated enemies, Zero, X, and Bass! "Of course, she's dead now. The copy Zero killed her." Bass had a moment to widen his eyes, and then suddenly he was on his back and staring up at Dice. The bat had, in a single fluid motion, pulled his feet out from under him with his tail. "Now, if you'll excuse me..." And he was gone, not interested in a fight with the black-armored reploid.

Bass pulled himself to his feet, shook his head, and went on down the hall. The strange bat machine was intriguing, certainly, but he had other matters to worry about.

* * *

He knew they were coming, before they appeared, their black armor gleaming in the harsh lighting of the small room. Zcix hadn't yet had the chance to don the full set of armor; the hooks and catches of the razor-edged plates were complicated, and he'd need a while to figure them out. Reapa's body lay forgotten in a corner of the room.

"You," Zcix hissed, recognizing the crimson-eyed reploid. "Bass. Why are you here?"

"I want to find out what's going on with all of this," the Ebony replied simply. He pulled off his helmet, running a gauntleted hand through his short hair, and fixed Zcix with a piercing stare. He meant to find out, and _now_, that stare said.

Zcix, free of the Voices and with a taint in his head running deeper by the moment, brought up his sabre and began to laugh.

"Sssssssssssorrrrrry," he hissed thickly, in a voice which Bass recognized all too well. Staring into the eyes of the insane copy-Zero, he could see Bloodrush reincarnated staring back at him. Then the unarmoured reploid flared his sabre to life, the yellow flames of energy making the air ripple, and raised it high over his head. One of the flourescent lights above burst with an agonized crash, darkening the room dramatically. Bass jumped to the side, just narrowly avoiding the sabre when it came down in a burning arc, but the sideswiping second half of the attack caught him in the chest, the strange energy of the blade sizzling through his armor without pause. The Ebony Warrior jammed his helmet back on his head quickly, and the armor plating on his right arm shifted swiftly into his buster. He dodged another strike from Zcix's rippling weapon, and fired off a quick volley of shots at the mad machine, all three of which were bounced back. The copy-Zero burst into a fit of screaming laughter, swiping his sabre back and forth, driving Bass towards a corner of the room. He raised it high, and the remaining light exploded outwards in a shower of sparks, plunging the room into darkness. The only source of light, now, was Zcix's furiously glowing sabre, which darted back and forth like the claws of some vicious animal, its yellow light reflecting off of Bass's black armor. He fired off another volley of shots, and this time one connected, making the copy-Zero jerk and sputter angrily, pressing his free hand against the hole scorched in his left shoulder. He took a few steps backwards, away from the other reploid, sabre raised and flickering back and forth threateningly. Then, suddenly, he turned and ran, snatching up the plates of his bladed armor, somehow avoiding cutting his hands to pieces on them. Bass slowly lowered his buster, his crimson eyes blinking in the darkness.

"...this isn't going to turn out well."

* * *

It had been two days since Bass went off after the strange reploid, and they'd not heard word of him. X was starting to worry, but Zero put more faith in his brother than that; he was certain that Bass wouldn't have simply gone off and gotten himself killed somehow. The Ebony was simply taking his time in returning.

Zero had donned his armor for the first time in a while. He was slightly surprised at how different it felt this time; this time, he wasn't about to charge off on a killing spree, or go on a suicide-run. This time, he donned it because it was something familiar...  
...in a world that was just starting to feel so strange.

He'd been re-living old memories again. Not by choice, mind you; the old, worn-out thoughts had been surfacing seemingly at random, interrupting whatever he had been trying to think. He had tried chasing them away, tried fighting against them, tried simply ignoring at them. None of that had worked. His only choice remaining...was to remember.

X was off...somewhere, he didn't know where. He'd been too distracted to even realize half the time when the Blue was trying to talk to him.

What if it wasn't the world that was strange? What if it was him?

He'd dealt with his own insanity more times than he could rightly recall, over the thirty-plus years he'd been alive. Always it had been a violent, sudden thing he'd had to fight off, something sharply defined, a jumbled confusion. Never like this, this slow build of intangible...whatever it was...that was slowly eating away his concentration.

_ He's still alive._ Zero almost jumped at his own thoughts, blinking and looking around. Alone in the room. Where had that thought come from...?

_ Oh...no..._ something was going terribly wrong—or maybe he was already terribly wrong and whatever it was was trying to fix itself, he didn't know. But his memories had gone back to points he hated to remember, working backwards, now, keeping in order suddenly. He remembered the mass destruction he'd rained down everywhere; before that, he remembered dragging Bass's mangled metal shell off to the edge of the sea and throwing it in with all the force he could muster, fully intending to never see it again.

Skipped. Something was skipped. What was skipped? Some memory, some event, he couldn't recall, it was blocked out.

_ Why?_ Death. Something to do with death. The thought came into his head, the same whisper as he'd thought..._Why has Death touched me?_

He hadn't been aware he'd been pacing the room until he stumbled suddenly, falling gracelessly to the floor.

_ That...was...what was real...?_

It was happening again. He could remember, vaguely, what happened the first time. The first time he'd...the first time he had died. Long before the incident with Sharded Wolf. He had killed off a part of himself...? No...

_ Bloodrush killed me. That was real._

The twisting feeling. The touch of Death. Screaming into an empty hallway. Crying from the pain, something he'd never done again. Bass, naming him Bloodrush. But Bloodrush wasn't him. Bloodrush was the cold and bloody madness that'd killed him.

_ You truly are Bloodrush. Complicated suicide. Part of you has died, and part of you has lived on. You have experianced the pain of death, Bloodrush, and now you will never die again.  
...but everyone else will._

He stood, trembling, remembering. He'd called himself a Maverick for the first time, then. It had been someone's name. Maverick...Maverick...but who was Maverick?

_ Always you'll remember my name. It shall be your standard._

"Not...any...more..." he hissed aloud, glancing around as though he could spot the low, growling purr.

_ Call me Maverick._

"Who are you?!" he demanded of the empty air, slamming his fist on the wall and knocking a hole in it. Plaster trembled down from the ceiling, advising him that he shouldn't do that again.

He didn't know who they were. Even remembering that incident, down in one of the deepest cellars of Wily's old lair...he hadn't seen them, had only heard their voice in the darkness.

He had to know who they were.

But first he had to take care of the business with that strange reploid.


	10. Chapter 5: The Falling Sun

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part II:  
Zcix

* * *

Chapter 5:  
The Falling Sun

* * *

Author's Notes: This is unbelievably fun, now that I actually know where I wanna take the plot.   
Oh, and yeah, it's kinda goofy...just makes ya either laugh or feel weird to think that, in the last chapter, when Bass and Zcix fought, Zcix were wearin' nothin' but a helmet XD I dunno, I find that amusing.  
Yay for my wonderful reviewers, Arken elf and Crystalstorm21!

* * *

_ Time, time...it's our ally and our enemy...we're almost out of time...what is out of time? Why? No questions. Make time on our side. Murder time. Just for a moment, yet...what is out of time? Why? No questions. No questions, shut up, shut up, shut up!_

Zcix giggled, a flat, dead sound. He looked up at the sky, where the sun hung full. He rose up his sabre, flared the blade to life, and pointed it straight at the sun. The yellow blade vanished against the yellow star. He swept the blade downwards, and for just a moment, it seemed as though the sun were streaking down to Earth.

"We'll murder time, we'll make the sun fall, just for a moment. What is out of time...? No questions, now!"

He was standing on the roof of a randomly-chosen condemned building, bedecked in his blade-scale armor, looking like some sort of ancient draconian night from a dark fairy tale. Each razored, navy-blue plate, the slicing tip streaked dark gray, gleamed in the midday sunlight, and his hair fell in a stream of firegold.

Then he looked over his shoulder, grinning.

"Hi, Bass." The ebony-clad reploid froze in mid-step, his expression momentarily one of surprise, quickly changing to anger.

"Alright, whoever—whatever—you are, I intend to find out what's going on with you, and where you came from," he growled, the armor of his right arm shifting into his buster cannon. He raised the weapon, aiming it straight for the copy-Zero's head, but all Zcix did was giggle again.

"Our name is Zcix," he said, his voice strangely childish. "We were a copy of Zero, and a reploid named Cix, but the scis messed with our head and put Zero together with Cix and got Zcix." He smiled, again a childish expression, strangely innocent-seeming. And utterly insane, as well, especially when what he was saying was taken into account. "Back then we looked different, and we ran away from the scis. You showed us where the real Zero was..." He frowned, here, and shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself, ridiculous as that seemed, especially taking his armor into account, "...and then we decided we couldn't stay near the real Zero because it messed with our head. Only whatever it was that messed with our head followed us away, and when that girl found us, we were kinda crazy." He smiled again, as though to suggest the problem was all gone now. Bass took a step away from that smile. "But we killed the Killer, only we think it didn't really die, 'cuz we can still feel what it's thinking, and it's thinking bad thoughts. It's thinking we should do what the girl told us we should do, before we killed her." Bass took another step back. Zcix had forgotten he was supposed to be smiling innocently, and now his expression was...psychotic, was the only word the Ebony found for it. "It's thinking that we should go and kill Zero. And maybe X, too, since he hangs out with Zero so much. And it's thinking..." psychotic expression turned to predatory "...it's thinking we should kill you, too. "The sun falls, just for a moment, but that's all I need." He lunged, his solsabre darting ahead, and Bass got another slice across the front of his breastplate before he managed to get away, his dash jets bursting on and sending him farther back. He fired off a trio of shots, but when they hit Zcix, they seemed to simply slide off and around his armor, continuing on their path behind him, to vanish harmlessly off into the sky. Bass just had time to widen his eyes and bare his teeth in an unbelieving snarl, when Zcix's viciously glowing sabre thrust forward...straight into the barrel of his buster cannon.

Both Bass and Zcix were thrown off the building in the backlash as the buster's powercore was melted from the heat of the solsabre. Zcix landed far below on the road, his weight and momentum shattering the concrete road like glass. He laid in an unmoving pile, solsabre a distance away from his outstretched arm.

Bass had been thrown to the other side, and so collided with the wall of another building, his metal body crushing straight through the stone wall, and through two of the inside walls as well, before he finally came to a stop in the middle of a dust-filled, empty room. Had he been even vaguely aware of his current position and state, he would have been grateful that he'd lost consciousness before he even realized what, exactly, had happened—Bass's right arm had been reduced to nothing but slag clear up to his shoulder. There was no blood or fluid, as the molten metal had soldered the all the wiring in his arm and shoulder shut—what was left of it, anyway.

Down in the street, Zcix stirred slowly, pushing himself up. Despite the force of his impact—the concrete just below him had been pulverized into grit—he felt none the worse for wear, and he didn't question his good fortune, simply standing up. He didn't notice the black-red blood splattered all around him on the ground, nor the way his left arm was twisted, the metal bent slightly. He couldn't see his own face. If he had, he would have run away screaming, thinking it was some sort of horrible monster—the synthetic skin that gave him his human appearance had been mostly burned away by the heat of the explosion.

Then the waves of pain, disorientation, and nausea hit him full-force, and he fell back to his knees, groaning lowly and putting a hand to his head. But he wouldn't let that stop him; he dragged himself up, slower this time, fighting off waves of dizzy blackness, and grabbed his solsabre off the road. The copy-Zero staggered slowly away, until finally, in a dark hole where one building had slumped partially over onto another, he curled up and lost consciousness, not even knowing that there was a slick trail of black-crimson leading straight to him.

* * *

X had been working his way through the city at a slow pace, hunting for the missing Bass, when he saw the explosion from a distance. His breath had caught in his throat, and then he'd run straight for it, somehow certain that Bass had been involved in it.

When he got there, the first thing he found was the area of shattered concrete, and the trail of blood leading away. However, something told him to look higher for Bass, that whoever's blood this was, they weren't the reploid he was looking for.

The door to the building was boarded shut, and he doubted the stairs were still intact anyway, so he simply scaled the side. His method was a rather odd-looking one—he clung to the wall and sort of hopped upwards, kicking himself up a bit further each time, his fingers curled to dig into the surface and keep him from falling back down—but it worked well enough for him.

When he finally pulled himself up over the top, he couldn't help but let his jaw drop at what he saw. There _was_ no top the building anymore. The roof had been obliterated, allowing one to see down into the top floor—which had also been rather charred and destroyed, not that there was much of anything there to _be_ destroyed. X edged around the jagged lip of the in-building crater, looking around for any possible signs of Bass. Then he saw the nearby building, with the hole blasted through the side. The dust from it was still settling, so that meant it couldn't have been an old hole knocked in it by some rowdies at some point. Kicking on his dash boots, X made the jump, his fingers just barely grabbing into the rim of the hole in the second building's side. The stone started to come apart in his grip, and he quickly scrabbled up inside.

"Bass...?" he called, though he kept his voice low. There was still the possibility that it hadn't been Bass who'd made the new opening in the wall, and if it was someone else, they might not be friendly. He didn't really need to call at all, though; he simply needed to follow the line of destruction to where it stopped.

When he came upon the Ebony Warrior, still out cold, his jaw dropped for a second time. Bass was a mess; in addition to losing his right arm, the front of his breastplate bore twin, crisscrossing gouges—though they didn't look to be anything of a worry, compared to the rest of him, which was blackened and scorched. Bass didn't much resemble what he was designed after, with his false skin having been burned and blackened, and the focusing lens to his left eye destroyed, turning it into a pure, flat, glaring red that stared aimlessly, unable to close. His remaining limbs were skewed, and the gem on his helmet had also been shattered, the delicate circuitry underneath totally fried, rendering his weaponsystem useless. Not that he still had a weapon anyway.

X hissed lowly, teeth bared in rage at whoever had done this, but there was no time for hunting them down now. X would bet anything the blood-trail had belonged to the perpetrator, so they would likely not be very difficult to track later.

For the moment, X slowly, carefully, lifted the larger—and much heavier—Bass up, grunting slightly in effort. Then, mentally plugging in coordinates, the Blue activated his now-little-used teleporter and vanished, heading back to the decrepit old building he'd been tentatively calling "home."

When X arrived back at the place, Zero wasn't there. The Blue growled lowly, as now would've been a good time for the Red to be there, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would have to leave Bass here alone while he went into the inner city to get help for him. He situated the unconscious reploid on the bed in the closest room to hand, and set out again. He would have to find a _very_ competant mechanic to fix Bass.

* * *

Zero himself was out on the town, in fact had been at the exact same time as X. He, too, had seen the tremendous explosion, and had gone running towards it, but with completely different intentions in mind.

"Nice," he chuckled quietly, coming upon the scene, taking in the blood and pulverized concrete, not ten minutes after X had teleported away with Bass. He knew, for a certainty, that this trail of dark fluid would lead him straight to the reploid he hunted.

_ The reploid who started this mess in my head,_ his thoughts snarled.

Zero's footfalls seemed to echo unnaturally in the empty street. That, in turn, drew his mind back, back, down once more into the unpenetratable darkness of Wily's deepest old cellars, where what had seemed an odd echo had become a monster named Maverick...

Zero shook his head sharply, banishing the recollections. Still, he couldn't help but feel a creeping sensation along the back of his neck, and he fought the urge to glance over his shoulder.

"You look quite nervous." Zero jumped and spun, sabre drawn, set for battle. The sight of the man before him did nothing to settle his nerves.

He couldn't tell if the stranger was a reploid, or a very unusual human, as he could catch no scent. While humans never noticed, with their weak senses, a reploid could smell the difference between flesh and metal easily. No smell at all...that'd never happened before.

"Understandable, I suppose," the...person...said then, seemingly to make up for Zero's silence. He offered no reply, instead taking a moment to study this stranger.

He was tall and willowy, with dead-white skin, short, shaggy-cut hair—it looked like it had been dyed, the pale sky blue color clashing somehow—and vibrant red eyes. An albino, then. His right arm was hidden under the thick cloak he wore—an ancient-style thing, looked to have been made from real fur, or at least top-of-the-line synthetics—and his left hand was held out in a beckoning sort of manner. Hanging from his slender fingers, flickering and spinning slowly, was a leopard-shaped pendant. Its body was made of something very black and very slightly opalescent, like some sort of black pearl. Each individual spot was done in silver, and its eyes were amethysts. Zero blinked at the curious thing, then, slowly, as though with difficulty, drew his eyes back up to its owner. The guy was just plain creepy, and the way he smiled didn't make it any better.

"I understand completely your situation, Zero," he said softly, and Zero tensed; he hadn't even been aware of relaxing his guard while he had been studying that pendant.

"How'd you know my name?!" he demanded, but the mystery man only laughed.

"Poor Zero, out on a wild goose chase, after the only thing that makes sense to you at all...the killing..." he murmured, sounding pitying and amused at the same time, an infuriating combination. That smile grew, and Zero found himself fighting not to either run away or rush the man. Both at once, if that was possible.

"Get lost," Zero said finally, and turned away. He wanted to go and finish his current task. He didn't have time to worry about weirdoes wandering the streets. Except...that weirdo had known his name somehow...his real name, not the name the public had known him as...

"You won't find what you seek!" the man called after him, laughing. Zero whirled around to retort, but he was gone without a trace.

* * *

Zcix kept coming back to consciousness and losing it again within seconds, on the losing end of a battle to regain his senses. When, once, he fought his way back to the surface far enough to be aware of the fact, he realized he could hear two people talking. Their voices were low, but that did not inhibit him at all; his hearing was too good to be foiled by whispering.

"Do you think he'll server your purpose well enough, Master?" This one's voice was thin and musical, like a chime.

"He should. If it's made certain that he won't turn against us. I don't trust even a twisted copy of that monster." The second's voice was deeper, harsher, more of a growl.

"Of course not, Master. He is, after all, still the beast in essence, and it is clear that Bloodrush got its claws deep into him."

"Do well, then. Your previous attempts have been rather...lacking."

"I am aware of that, Master. I do not mean to speak out of place, but remember that I have been doing this since before you were born..."

"I know that perfectly well. Go now. Take him to Uther. The man cannot be outdone when it comes to such things as these."

"Might I wonder if you are being slightly biased towards Mr. Uther, Master...?"

"_Go. Now._"

"...yes, of course, Master..."

Any further conversation was lost to Zcix, as he dropped back into unconsciousness.

* * *

"Uurr..." the reploid who X was questioning seemed half-asleep, but he gave the Blue a cognitive response in ten minutes. "If ye'r lookin' fer the best durned mechanic this side of th'universe, 'rr, ye'r lookin' fer Michael. Professor Michael Uther, sp'cifically, he has a small place up nearer the western edge o'the inner city. Ye'r not goin t'get better jobs'n what he can do anywhere, but'cha better be prepared t'spend a arm an' a leg t'get 'em." Then the reploid promptly fell asleep, but that was all X needed. He teleported back to the building where he'd left Bass, and, carrying the Ebony Warrior over his shoulder, headed for the western side of the city.

By the time he reached the place, his back and shoulders were aching terribly from carrying Bass the whole way. He raised his hand, about to knock on the door—the building was small but well-built, painted a sedate, official-looking off-white with tan trim—when a young man swung it open, nearly knocking X over with it in the process.

"Ah-hah! I knew it!" they shouted triumphantly. The man had black hair, held somewhat orderly but still managing to appear messy even combed back as it was, and he was wearing a long white coat. He grinned broadly, and X was certain he recognized him, somehow. "My sense has never failed me yet. Come on! Come on! Hurry up, inside!" He ushered the Blue in quickly, down through a simple-but-expensive-looking entrance hall, into a back room clearly meant for repairs. "Lay him on the repair table, there. You're lucky you came just now, I just got finished with another repair job that looked to be nearly as difficult as this one, so I'm all warmed up!" X placed Bass on the metal table, blinking and looking around.

"You don't have any assistants?" he asked curiously. The young man—Michael, obviously—shook his head.

"No, I work alone. Now out! Out of the room! I don't need spectators!" he shouted, chasing X out and slamming the door behind him. X just stared blankly at the door, then turned around and walked back down the entrance hall a short ways. It was not meant to be a waiting room—clearly, Mr. Uther was devoted to his work, not entertaining visitors—and there were no seats of any kind. Finally, X wound up simply sitting on the floor, his head leaning back against the wall, staring off into space and wondering why he felt as though he were familiar with...not Michael Uther himself, but someone who closely resembled him...

..._But that would be...me..._ X blinked at the thought, considering it. Michael was taller, his eyes more hazel than green, and had made some serious attempt to tame his wild black hair, but other than that, the two could be considered nearly identical. The chances of that, it seemed to X, were rather ridiculous, especially because Michael was a human!

_ Talk about your freaky coincidences,_ X thought, and shook his head, closing his eyes. This, he felt, could take a while, and he was exhausted from dragging Bass around so much. He slipped off into a light doze rather quickly.

* * *

"I thank you greatly, Master, for covering the expense needed for his repairs...Uther has always charged a rather steep price for his services..." Zcix, in a state of foggy half-wakefulness, heard the chime-voiced one say. The other, the "Master," just chuckled.

"It is well worth it, for the purpose he is soon to fulfill." Zcix managed to open his eyes, but his vision was blurry. He only got the impression of two figures, radically different; one was pale but wrapped in something dark, and towered over the other, who was bedecked in dark maroon-red. The copy-Zero blinked a few times, and his vision cleared just in time to see the one in maroon vanish down the hall. When the taller one spoke—it was revealed that the dark wrapped around him was a cloak, apparently made of fur—it was with the windchime voice.

"Well, I see you've awakened, Zcix," he said, smiling slightly. His vividly red eyes were disturbing, haunting, enchanting. Zcix pushed himself up slowly, slightly surprised to discover that he was not in his Bladebane armor. Seeing as he'd had nothing else under it, he felt vaguely uncomfortable, but the blue-haired stranger did not seem to care in the least. "I do hope you're feeling better?" Zcix blinked and nodded slowly. He remembered, vaguely, the incident with being blown of the building, and the pain it had brought.

"Who are you?" he asked quietly, "and what...'purpose'...do you want us to fulfill?" The stranger's smile broadened.

"Ah, so you were listening! Very well, then. I myself am of no importance, but you may call me Wheruvan if you wish. And your purpose is the same as it has always been..." his smile was slightly more sharp, now, more deadly. "...to kill Zero." Zcix sighed, slightly tired of the same thing over and over again, and glanced around to discover his armor neatly piled nearby, the RiotSword waiting patiently beside it. Then he looked back up at Wheruvan, who had turned away.

"Why is our purpose always to kill Zero? We do not even know what Zero has done..." he murmured, not really expecting an answer. But Wheruvan whirled quickly, and hissing.

"Zero is a monster," he said, his voice sounding almost breathless with rage and excitement. "He has killed countless innocents and corrupted even more. He fools everyone, but my Master and I know him for what he is. We seek to destroy him before he has the chance to kill again." Zcix's eyes widened—had his original really done such things?—and he found himself nodding mindlessly. Wheruvan was simply convincing.

Or maybe it was the leopard pendant that was tangled 'round the fingers of his visible hand.

* * *

X was started to wakefulness when the door at the end of the hall swung open. He stood up quickly, just as Michael walked into the hall.

"Well," the human said, wiping a hand quickly across his brow, "it was a tough job, to be sure—he's quite an odd reploid, isn't he?—but I think I did as well as I could." He nodded, and X sighed in relief.

"Thanks," he said, but then he frowned. "Er..." Michael raised an eyebrow, and a knowing sort of a smile worked onto his face.

"Lemme guess. No way to afford the price," he said, and X nodded shamefacedly. The human shrugged, slipping his hands into the pockets of his black slacks.

"Not too unusual," he replied. "Especially not in situations like these. We'll just have to work something out, one way or another." He tilted his head, now, studying X, apparently really taking notice of him for the first time. "You can start by telling me who you and your friend are, though. The both of you seem oddly familiar..." X blinked at that—he supposed Michael had noticed already the similarities in appearance between he and the Blue, but where would Bass be familiar from?—and shrugged.

"Well, my name's X, and his's Bass," he said simply. He was not expecting the reaction he got; Michael took an abrupt step backwards, pulling his hands out of his pockets in order to clench them into fists. He looked frightened.

"X? As in, Megaman X Light?" he demanded hoarsely. X just nodded slowly.

"I mean, I know all sorts of rumors used to be going on about me, but that was years ago..." he began, but the human cut him off.

"And Bass is Bass Forte Wily?" That question made X stop short. The number of people in the world who knew Bass's full name, he had thought, had been brought down to almost nil.

"...how did you know his name?" the Blue asked quietly. Michael shook his head, clearly refusing to answer, instead stepping further back.

"You..." the man seemed to have a hard time forming together the sentence he desired. "You...you...you monster!" Then he turned and ran, through a different door this time, slamming it shut. There was the click-beep of a lock activating. X stood there, blinking in confusion, mouth hanging open.

"...what?"

* * *

Bass pulled himself back into consciousness with a fair amount of urgency. The only thought in his dazed mind was, _I have to tell X and Zero...!_ However, as soon as he regained consciousness, he stopped for a moment, considering where he was. A repair room, obviously. He'd seen them often enough throughout his life. As soon as he started to push himself up, X rushed into the room, urging him to get up quickly. X considered Bass's armor, which was laying in a pile nearby, then shook his head—it was mostly destroyed, as Michael hadn't been very concerned with repairing it. It would be totally useless anyway. Bass's undersuit had also been reduced to a tattered ruin, but he pulled that on anyway, since he had nothing else at the moment.

"X!" Bass growled, grabbing the Blue's attention. X looked at him, clearly impatient but willing to listen anyway. "Y'know that ratlizard reploid that showed up earlier?" X nodded; how could he have forgotten that thing? "I chased it down, only to find out that Reapa had a hand in it. Not too surprising. She gave it—him—an new body, too. That's how I found him, right after he'd killed her. He looks exactly like Zero, now. He told me that he's a copy of Zero, or at least he was, until some group of people—scientists, he said—got ahold of him and screwed him all up. He's nutty as a loon now." X considered this, but what convinced him they should really get moving again was Bass's next statement. "Oh yeah, he said he wanted to kill the lot of us, too. That was just before he speared my buster and sent the both of us flying off the building." He looked down at his right arm, which was now as good as new. "Don't remember much of that, though I'm willing to bet it hurt." X nodded, then grabbed Bass's wrist and started to drag him away.

"We have got to get out of here," he informed the Ebony Warrior. "The guy who I had repair you...he knew who you were, and on top of that he called me a monster. I have the feeling we don't want to hang out around here any longer." X couldn't help but be remorseful at running away, though. For one thing, dishonesty was not in his nature—he felt bad that he hadn't been able to make up for the fact that he could in no way afford to pay for Bass's repairs—and for another, he really, really wanted to know how Michael Uther had known who Bass was.

But for now, he activated his teleporter as soon as he was outside, and the pair of them were gone, back to the building they lived in.

* * *

Zero snarled lowly, gripping his sabre tightly. He'd found where the strange reploid had obviously collapsed, but it looked like someone else had whisked it away since then.

"Probably that freak..." he muttered, then, taking out some of his frustration, slashed the wall of the half-fallen building. The entire thing groaned and toppled into the other building, turning into a mountain of rubble.

Zero walked away from the scene, his blue eyes flashing viciously. Wild goose chase indeed. Now he wanted to kill something, an urge he hadn't felt in quite a while.

He walked past the sheet of mostly-broken mirror by chance. It was propped up against the side of a building which didn't seem to actually be empty, strangely enough—there was a light on upstairs. But that wasn't what made Zero stop and stare.

The first thing that came to his awareness was the difference in armor. It may have been quite a while back that he'd gotten the new stuff—the memory of the nature of acquisition still made him shudder—but still, every time he caught sight of it, he was reminded just how different it was. Of course, he was glad to have the new armor; it was lighter, easier to put on or take off, and more flexable, allowing him greater speed. The metal it was made out of was also much stronger than his old stuff. But he couldn't help but miss is old armor, even with its ridiculous green gems. He'd had that armor for a long, long time. But it had also harboured memories of his past; of the demonic Bloodrush, of his madness, of the things he had done. He supposed he was better off without such a reminder of those times.

Finally, he shrugged and walked past.

Ten minutes later, a new reflection, this one in armor that looked like a bladed serpent, followed.


	11. Chapter 6: Neon Light

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part II:  
Zcix

* * *

Chapter 6:  
Neon Light

* * *

Author's Notes: This is the final chapter of Part II! Then will come the PII Epilogue, and then, of course, the beginning of Part III. Yep, there's gonna be a Part III, because now I know where my ideas are going.  
Yay for reviewers, neo x and Crystalstorm21!

* * *

Zcix knew very well what he was to do. He was not to even attempt taking on all three at once; he had to get them, one at a time, and destroy them.

Zero was his first target. Zero, his original. Zero...the Demon. Zcix wasn't even aware that he was grinning. All he was aware of was that Zero didn't even know he was there yet.

He wasn't about to wait any longer. With a howl, Zcix charged, leaping up into the air, solsabre flaring to life. But it streaked down on nothing but air. The copy-Zero blinked, looking around in confusion, then snarled.

Zero had teleported away! Running from a fight?! Not likely. He'd probably not even noticed Zcix's warcry...

* * *

When Zero reappeared at the old building, he found Bass and X waiting for him. Before he even got a chance to say "hi," the both of them had burst out into one of the weirdest-sounding explanations he'd ever heard. Though maybe that was because they were both talking at once.

"Whoa, whoa!" Zero said, holding up his hands in an attempt to stop them. "Slow down, one at a time!" Bass fell silent, and X took a deep, slow breath before starting over.

He went ahead and told the whole tale—how he'd found Bass wrecked, then gone to Professor Michael Uther to get him repaired, how Michael had run away in terror when he found out who they were, and what Bass had said about Zcix. Zero listened to it all in silence, and seemed mostly absorbed with his own thoughts afterwards. Then, finally, he shook his head as though banishing something, and locked his ocean-blue eyes with X's emerald greens.

"We'll just have to kill him first. Bass is out of the match; no armor equals no chance. It'll jus' be me'n you," he grinned, then. "Better get your armor, X. We can't just be waitin' around for him to strike first."

* * *

"I'm really, really sorry about all this. I'd never've...if I'd known..."

"It's all right, Michael. You didn't know, so it's no fault of yours." Michael sighed lowly, looking down at his much-shorter friend.

"Yeah, but it seems like I'm defeating the whole purpose of all this. You know I don't like this whole deal," he muttered, turning away. The other behind him just shook his head, expression unreadable.

"I know, Michael. I know you'd much rather not be involved in any of this, but you can't pretend that the past never happened..." he trailed off when the human slammed his fist down on the table, making it tremble slightly, and whirled on him.

"I just don't know if you're right in doing this! I saw X with my own eyes, B., and you know what? He looked like me. Do you know how disturbing it is to find someone who looks almost exactly like you?" The maroon-clad B. just shook his head.

"How surprising is it? Dr. Light designed his machines after his own family. X was the last one he built; he probably had already made a guess, likely without being aware of it, on how you would look when you grew up." Michael sighed again, letting his head hang.

"It doesn't matter. That doesn't change the fact that I can hardly believe my granddad would create a..._monster_..." B. folded his arms across his chest, frowning.

"I've told you time and again. X was not created a monster. He was corrupted by Zero." Michael stood himself up straight once more, and glared at the much-smaller B.

"You may think that, but I don't know anymore. He acted like any other person when I met him, just worried about his friend."

"Never mind that his friend was a _murder machine_ created by a lunatic?"

"And how much better are we, if we have to resort to paying off creeps like that Wheruvan character to bump somebody off?"

"I've told you time and again, Wheruvan is not an _assassin!_"

"Yeah, he just uses people like tools. That makes him a whole lot better. Remember what he did to Manticore and Jabberwock?"

"They were both criminals. And besides that, all Wheruvan did to Manticore was show him what he really was. Manticore committed suicide; Wheruvan did not kill him."

Michael slammed his hand down on the table again, this time forcefully enough to make it sting. The table, deciding it didn't have to take that kind of abuse, collapsed. B.'s expression was blank; what could be seen of it, anyway.

"That doesn't change the fact that Wheruvan is a manipulating freak! How do you know he won't make you his next game piece?! He rarely leaves people alive when they know his name," the human growled, and B. offered no response. "I don't trust him. He knows Zero way too well. There's something that's just not _right_ about that." Then he turned and walked away, slamming the door behind him. B. sighed, pulling off his pitch-black sunglasses in order to rub at his eyes.

"If only you knew how much I agreed with you, Michael."

* * *

Zero skidded to a halt in the middle of the street, and X quickly followed suit.

It was a face-off. X felt sort of like he didn't belong, seeing Zero and his clone staring each other down. Zcix broke the silent contest first; he grinned and swung one arm up, letting loose a wild, triumphant whoop.

"Wher said we should take you one at a time, but we're not afraid of X's little popgun!" the copy shouted, and his sabre burst to life. He dashed forward in a dark streak, and Zero leapt to the side, his own sabre flaring up. X hopped back and away, charging his buster, as Zcix and Zero dashed and flickered, both attempting to catch the other while not allowing themselves to be hit. Soon enough they were locked in close combat, their sabres connecting. Every time plasma energy met sol energy, there was a violent spray of white and purple sparks, forcing the two combatants to either dash away or be shocked. Immediately after one such separation, X fired his fully-charged shot straight at Zcix...but the plasmic cannonfire simply warped and slid around his strange armor, instead demolishing the building behind him. X blinked, deciding quickly that a new strategy was going to be required in this situation.

Then he was bounding away, trying to avoid Zcix, who had suddenly come after him. Zcix was certainly fast, but X, with a lighter frame, was faster. He skipped up the side of a building, which promptly began toppling as Zcix's solsabre slashed through the wall. He leapt away, hitting the ground and rolling, then whirled on the copy-Zero. The tinge to his armor had changed; suddenly, he was no longer blue but red. Zcix whirled and lunged for him...  
...and jumped face-first into a streaming Fire Wave. The reploid screamed, jerking off his dash, falling to the ground with enough force to make him skid through the grit. He stood up immediately, charred and smoking. The expression on his face made X want to run and hide under his bed.

"You die, Hunter!" he hissed, in a voice X recognized all too well.

"Bloodrush!" he gasped, and Zero, who had been charging towards the unnoticing copy, froze in his tracks.

"What?!" he demanded, and Zcix started to giggle.

"We've got so many people in our head, we forget all their names. But yeah, one might be Bloodrush," he purred, silken steel. Then Zero lunged for him, tackling him onto the ground, hacking at him, trying to lop the copy's insanely grinning head off. Zcix fought back viciously, drawing his knee up into Zero's gut, which was more painful than usual because of the bladed armor the copy wore. Zero, however, just grunted and winced and hacked at Zcix again, the blow blocked by the solsabre. The sparks caused by the two blades zapped the both of them, but neither one could or would back off for such a small reason as that. Zero slashed again, and again was blocked, but this time neither combatant pulled their blade out of the lock, instead forcing and twisting, trying to slip past and spear the other through the skull. The sparks grew into crackling bolts, which were flickering and racing along the metallic hilts of both weapons, and Zero's expression matched Zcix's perfectly for its ferocity. X, unable to safely attack with the two like that, could only watch with a horrified expression on his face.

Then Zero's blade slipped off Zcix's. Both blades shot straight at their intended target, both reploids jerked to the opposite side, both received a long gash along the side of their neck, narrowly escaping a fatal wound. Zero rolled one way, Zcix the other, and the two came quickly to their feet, facing each other.

But Zcix's back was to X, and suddenly the copy-Zero was flung forward, a wash of flames scorching his flowing—and now rather messed-up and tattered looking—golden mane, charring his armor to black. Zcix didn't panic so much this time, swinging himself around, taking Zero's feet out from under him, and whirling on X. The Blue stumbled as the copy reploid pounced on him like a feral cat, and stabbed his solsabre straight down.

X's eyes were wide and blank with shock. He couldn't feel a thing, though somewhere his brain registered that his stomache had just been run through by the searing hot blade. There was no blood, for the heat of the solsabre melted the metal, soldering all the wires closed instantly. Then it was Zcix's turn to don a strange, surprised expression, when a plasma sabre jammed straight down through his neck.

The copy collapsed ontop of X and was immediately kicked off by Zero, who grabbed the solsabre—still active, still pinning the Blue to the ground—and switched it off. At first he seemed tempted to simply throw the thing away in disgust, but then instead he shoved it into the holster where his own sabre normally rested, which he'd left jammed into Zcix's corpse. He ignored it for now.

X vaguely identified that he was in shock, and that was why he felt so completely numb, but that barely registered on whatever part of his mind controlled his thinking.

"Zero..." he whispered, "...what...?" Then his eyes rolled back into his head, as his consciousness abandoned him.

* * *

"You've failed me yet again, Wheruvan. The copy Zero is dead, and the only thing to show for it is that X has been incapacitated. That will only last until Bass leads them to Michael, I'm sure." B. shook his head, grimacing. Wheruvan arched one thin eyebrow—almost invisible, seeing as it was white against his dead-white skin—and folded his hands behind him.

"But I thought Michael was a trusted friend of yours?" he questioned. The smaller person sighed heavily, as he tended to do quite often.

"He is confused. X's resemblance to himself has put him off-guard. He refuses to believe that anyone who looks so similar to himself could be a demon." Wheruvan swept his left hand out from behind him—his right, not even B. had ever seen—and tapped one long, thin finger against his narrow chin.

"Oh really? So you believe that Michael will repair X?" he hummed, and then a wicked grin spread across his face. "Well...what a most unfortunate turn of events..." B. looked at Wheruvan with some suspicion.

"...I have a feeling you're not talking about the copy Zero's defeat." Wheruvan patted the much-smaller B. on the head in a patronizing manner.

"An unfortunate event indeed, that the famed Professor Michael Uther met his fate at the hands of Zero and Bass, a pair of machines known for their habits of mass destruction..." B. growled lowly.

"Don't you even dare, Wheruvan. You will not harm Michael. I will see to that," he stated. Wheruvan's grin faded, and he gave B. a very judging look.

"You want Zero, X, and Bass dead, do you not...? Ah, but I see. You don't want to become as bad as they are in the process. Of course, Master." Wheruvan swept a wide bow. "I'll come up with some other plan, then. Never mind Michael, though he is a traitor to our cause..."

"Michael is not a traitor," B. replied. "He is simply struggling with his decisions at the moment. It is a human trait; you wouldn't recognize it." Wheruvan snickered lightly, waving his hand.

"Of course not, of course not!" Then he turned and walked away.

As soon as he walked out into the street, he looked back over his shoulder and smirked.

"Hold on to your na¿ve belief that you are better than the rest of us, my friend. But I know that the only way to defeat them is to make a deal with the Devil..." He walked away, laughing quietly to himself.


	12. Part II Epilogue: Count to Three

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part II:  
Zcix

* * *

Epilogue:  
Count to Three

* * *

Author's Notes: At long last, Part II of Bloodrush is complete! Also, this Epilogue was a hassle. The first part was re-written multiple times.  
**IMPORTANT:** When Part III begins, the rating of this fic will be pushed up to **R** for harsh language (mostly Zero's, I suspect.) If anyone really is for some reason curious as to why I've never used profanity before, and I'm just suddenly starting to, you can e-mail me about it or something.  
Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21 and neo x!

* * *

He ghosted through the night air like a wraith, his ash-gray cloak pushed back so that he could fully stretch his dark wings. His huge ears twitching, deep eyes scanning the ground below from within the black wolfskull helmet, the half-reploid spotted his quarry.

Dice landed silently on the street, for a moment simply studying the cold metal corpse of Zcix. He crouched low beside it, taking a moment to check and see the extent of the damage. Though scorched and battered, it was mostly intact—except, of course, where Zero's sabre, which had long since deactivated itself, was jammed into the dead reploid's neck. He'd really stabbed the thing with some force; the hilt was buried halfway into the metal. Dice wrapped his thin fingers around it and, with some amount of difficulty, worked the blood-spattered device loose, then slipped it into a pocket on the inside of his cloak.

His new masters at CyberCerebellum had instructed him to bring back Zcix's body; they'd not said anything at all about any weapons. The bat machine snickered quietly to himself, as he began to strip Zcix's corpse of its armor. The design was intriguing, surely, but Dice wasn't meant to be a bearer of cargo, and the armor would be too heavy for him to cart about through the air. As soon as he'd finished, he leapt into the air, gaining a boost from a pair of jet-thrusters concealed along his back, and snatched the dead reploid up. What the folks at CyberCerebellum intended for the deceased Zcix, Dice had no idea, nor did he exactly care.

The dark-furred bat and his burden quickly vanished into the night.

* * *

Michael wrung his hands repeatedly, finding himself being stared down by two suddenly vicious-looking reploids. Bass's crimson eyes were gleaming like bloodrubies, his face set in a sternly commanding expression. And Zero, who was battered and bloody, his blonde hair frazzled, had on almost no expression at all as he held the limp X in his arms.

"You may call us monsters," the Red growled lowly, "and you may be right. But I'm not enough of a monster to let my best friend die just because some sniveling little human thought he was too good to help us. And I swear to you, if you don't fix X, I will not kill you; I will make your life a living nightmare." Michael gulped. Zero was truly a terrifying creature, and add what Michael had heard of him to the mix, and it wouldn't have surprised many people had Michael Uther fainted dead away right then and there.

But there is something to be said for heritage. For though Dr. Light's time may have been long passed, Michael still felt need to make his grandfather proud of him. And, just as he had voiced his concerns to B., something kept telling him that what he'd been told of X, Zero, and Bass was not the whole truth. And so, Michael found himself ushering them inside just as he would any other customer with an urgent situation to be attended to, and found himself directing Zero where to put X, even managed to chase the pair of them out of the repair room just as he would anyone else. He was trembling and sweating enough to soak the gray shirt he wore beneath his white coat, and his black hair had escaped its half-taming and was now flattened to his forehead wherever it wasn't simply sticking up of its own accord, but he immediately set to work, removing X's armor and undersuit with a practiced, efficient air. Before he could begin the repairs, however, the Blue's emerald eyes fluttered open half-way, causing Michael to halt immediately.

"...you should keep yourself in stasis until all the repairs are complete," he said at last. X simply looked at him for a few minutes.

"...I thought...you said I was...a monster...?" the reploid whispered. Michael blinked, mouth open but no words coming to mind for a moment.

"Well," he said at last, "I might have been wrong...after all, my granddad did build you, and I know he didn't build monsters. Not on purpose." X's eyes went wide, and he even tried to sit up before the pain in his middle made him think better of it.

"...Dr. Light was...your grandfather?" he gasped out, unable to believe what he'd heard. Michael just nodded.

"My full name is Michael Light Uther," he replied. X grinned...then he sighed heavily and slipped back into stasis, thoroughly exhausted.

* * *

Out in the hall, Zero was growling at Bass, who was insisting that the blonde at least check to see how bad the gash in his stomache was.

"I ain't strippin' in the middle of a stranger's front hall," the Red snarled, swatting Bass away. The Ebony frowned, but then shrugged and gave up the effort for the time being, instead folding his legs under him, sitting cross-legged and leaning against the wall.

"Fine, Zero," he said, quietly but loud enough for the other reploid to hear. "Be as stubborn as you always were." The scorn in the comment was what really clung to Zero's mind, after Bass slipped into whatever sort of a light sleep—or maybe some sort of trance or something—he used whenever he was bored. A trick he'd retained from his days as a much simpler robot, when boredom wasn't something he had to worry about. The blonde sighed, pressing a hand against his middle where Zcix's bladed armor had left a moderate-sized puncture wound in his metal frame. His hand came away soaked with blood. He gritted his teeth.

"Nothing I can do about it yet anyway..." was his last statement before he leaned his head back against the wall and succumbed to his weariness.


	13. Chapter 1: Come Back Nightmares

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part III:  
Fog

* * *

Part III Summary: There has been a full two years of silence, but just when Zero, X, and Bass make the mistake of thinking their enemies may have finally moved on, the past's demons return...

* * *

Chapter 1:  
Come Back Nightmares

* * *

Author's Notes: Welcome to Part III.  
Wily's Fortress in this fic does _not_ look like a big skull-plus-factory deal, just in case you're curious.  
Yay for reviewers, neo x, Crystalstorm21, and Iniora Nackatori!

* * *

_ This is a really bad idea._ He would never say that aloud, of course; X was only trying to be helpful. But Zero couldn't shake the feeling that something very, very unfortunate might be the end result of all this.

Still, he walked slowly through the empty, barren wasteland of a field, following after the smaller reploid.

_ Place probably isn't even there anymore. Of course not. It's long gone by now._ Probably the main reason he had such a sense of dread inside him was the fact that he was going back, back to a place he'd avoided like a fatal disease, a place he had never, ever wanted to see again. He was going home.

_ If that place could ever be called 'home.' Seems like a sick joke to even try to call it that._ Wily's old fortress, the place where he'd lost his mind so long ago, the place where he'd killed Bass. Bass had, unsurprisingly, not wanted to come along, and X hadn't tried to make him. This really wasn't his journey to make anyway. It was Zero's.

_ It's not like it's a big deal, even if the place is still standing. _X had been determined to get Zero to come here, ever since the Red had finally told him about the long-ago incident in Wily's old cellars. With the thing that called itself Maverick. Despite how much he'd told himself not to mention it, he even wound up telling X about how he'd...died, sort of. The Blue had been very silent for a long while after that.

_ He probably thought I was nuts...except he sorta already knows I am..._

Zero and X both stopped in their tracks at once when they saw it. The ancient Wily building, looking crumpled and showing its age quite clearly, stood silent, like an enormous skeleton of some horrible monster. The windows were empty sockets that leered off silently; the hole-riddled, leaning walls were bones worn thin and weak by the march of time and the elements; the sunken ground was a destroyed tomb.

_ Guess that makes us the graverobbers._ Zero shrugged at that thought, as X started forward again. X hadn't brought his armor, instead choosing to believe that, if the place was still in the lease bit intact, it would be completely abandoned. He was decked simply in a long-sleeved white shirt and jeans, certainly a contrast to Zero, who had refused to come without being in full armor. For a moment the Red just watched his green-eyed companion, who looked back over his shoulder after a minute when he realized the blonde wasn't following. His every breath brought a white puff of mist into being; it was cold out here.

"...Zero? Earth to Zero?" X tried after a moment, and the taller reploid blinked and shook his head.

"Err. Yeah, Zero reporting in," he muttered, following after the Blue.

* * *

"...that is all?" Wheruvan nodded slightly, though the gesture was lost in the endless darkness. Somewhere off in the black there was a steady _drip-drip-drip_, and the sound of rats and other vermin scurrying about. The air was stale, the place dank and old.

"Yes. I trust it will be a simple task," the blue-haired man said at last, smiling into the dark. His voice echoed back at him, and a few moments later there was a single, shuffling footstep.

"Of course. Go now," said the person hidden in darkness, their voice rough and harsh. Wheruvan nodded again, and turned around, walking back to the ladder that led out of this place. "...and Wheruvan..." He looked back over his shoulder, though there was no point to that.

"Yes?" he questioned, and had to wait a full three minutes for a reply.

"...remember that I don't do _favors_..."

"Of course not. Whatever you want in payment, you shall have it."

"Good. I'll tell you the price after I've finished the job."

"See you then." He was up and out of that place quickly, walking through halls that were just as dark, but somehow less oppressive.

"A deal with the devil indeed."

* * *

He opened his eyes slowly, staring at something that was just an unfocused blur. His head was ringing horribly.

_ Welcome back!_

_ Oh, yes, yes, heehee, welcome back, back to the land of the living._

_ We were _waiting_ for you, you _bastard_!_

_ Oh, yes, so long waiting, so long..._

He recognized those. The Voices were back again. They just made his headache worse.

"...go away..." he muttered, closing his eyes and sighing. "...just want you all to go away again..."

_ No can do. _

_ You kept us _waiting_...waiting for such a long _time_...you motherfucking _bitch_!_

_ We want payback...keehheeeeeeheeheheheheeeheee...payback for when you shut us up in the dark, heeheeeheekeehee...oh, yes..._

Always the three. Three Voices, three incarnations of madness.

And the scis. He knew they were there. Waiting, just beyond the little circle of dark he kept 'round himself by refusing to open his eyes. Just beyond the blurring fog that eclipsed his mind, made it blackened and cold.

"...what happened..."

_ You were dead._

_ You _died_. How could you _do_ that to us? Shove us away...how _could_ you, you fucking _bastard_?!_

_ Kehkehkehkeh...but now you're back, and we're here again...and it's payback time, oh yes, oh yes, heeheeheehee..._

* * *

B. steepled his fingers, sitting in front of the desk. Wheruvan stood, leaning against the wall, smiling slightly.

"...I'm not going to ask what you did. I just ask that you see it through, and make sure Zero _stays_ dead this time," he said at last, not looking up. Wheruvan laughed lightly.

"Of course, master." He was gone, out of the room, immidiately, sweeping away, making no noise as he went swiftly down the stairs. B. sighed, as he found he had a tendancy to do whenever Wheruvan finally left his presence. He certainly knew he hated the man, but there was no other way he could see to stop Zero... The small man stood, pulling off his shades and tilting his head back, eyes closed.

"If only I could fight him myself. Maybe then I could at least gain some satisfaction from this whole mess..." He clenched a fist, careful not to shatter his glasses. "Zero...I owe you so much pain for what you've done...the torment you've caused me...but I know that I'm not a competant enough fighter to face you myself..." He went silent, standing there, not opening his eyes, as he considered. "...unless..."

* * *

Zero smashed down yet another door, kicking it straight in the middle, snapping it in half like it was cardboard. There was no power anywhere in the building, so none of the doors could be opened. And, of course, there was no light anywhere at all, but X, thankfully, had had the good sense to bring a flashlight. If he hadn't, Zero wouldn't have gone past the entrance. Partially because of his poor nightvision, and partially because...well, he would have to be tortured for days before he'd admit it even to himself, but the mighty Red Warrior was afraid of the dark. It was perfectly understandable, of course; everyone, even ferocious reploids such as himself, had their irrational fears...and the worst event to ever happened in Zero's life had been caused by something hidden in the dark.

He was trying his hardest not to think about that, however. Trying not to think about how he was getting steadily closer to that cellar where he'd...

"Well, I'll be damned if I remember where the fucking cellar is," he spat, annoyed with himself for dwelling on such dark things. This was just a stupid idea, he shouldn't feel like his skin was crawling. There was nothing in here but a bunch of dead metal and puddles of brackish water that'd condensed randomly about the halls.

"We'll just have to hunt through all the rooms, then," X said calmly. He knew very well that Zero was just flustered about being here, and wasn't about to take offense at his tone.

Zero came to another door at the end of the hallway, and immidiately smashed his fist into it. The metal crumpled inwards a fair deal, but did not give way, and he hit it again, venting his frustration on the harmless door. It was split in two, the pieces clattering loudly on the floor, and Zero kicked one of them, sending it skittering away into the dark. There was a resonant clash as it struck a wall somewhere on the far side of the room beyond. X trailed the flashlight's strong beam along the ground, flicking it across various boxes of items which had once been perishable, and now were simply perished. Clearly, before the electricity in the building had failed, this place had been a cooler. Not what they were looking for. But just before X turned to head back up the hall, something curious was caught on the edge of the flashlight's ray. He blinked, focusing the light on it, trying for a moment to decipher what on Earth it was...

Then he jerked it away out of reflex, and grabbed Zero's shoulder. The Red hadn't been paying attention.

"What?!" he demanded sharply, jumping. X didn't even pause a moment to consider the fact that Zero was actually _nervous_.

"Who was that?" X asked quietly, pointing the flashlight beam again at what he'd discovered.

An aged corpse, long since rotted away to bones, was tangled in something that looked like it might've, at one time, been a white coat. Zero was silent for a long time, staring at the crumpled skeleton, the half-crushed skull.

"...that would be ol' Wily..." he muttered at last, turning away. X stared into the room a moment longer, then he also left it behind, leaving Wily's remains to the dark once more.

* * *

He was fidgeting, twitching, rolling from one side to the other. He did _not_ want to open his eyes.

But in the end he did anyway, looking out into the room where a single sci stood, his back turned to the reploid. He still felt sluggish and cold. Maybe they'd sedated him. It would make sense...he was a lot more dangerous now than he had been before...

But they'd underestimated him, those scis. They had done it once before, too. They just weren't too bright, it seemed.

"...hi," he said aloud, catching the sci's attention. The woman whirled around, staring at him, surprised.

"You're not supposed to be awake!" she said in an astonished tone of voice.

"You're really stupid," the reploid commented, then he stood up and, in one fluid movement, leapt through the barrier that was meant to keep him contained. It was an energy hybrid, of course, so the tactic of simply smashing through it hurt a lot, but he didn't really care, landing on all fours and pushing himself up slowly. He wasn't at all bothered that he had nothing on; why should he care? They were all going to die anyway, so it didn't matter what they saw. He smiled slightly, just watching the sci, who was backing up slowly, clearly intending to hit some sort of panic alarm on the console she'd been working at. He didn't give her the chance.

He still had that taint in his head, the one that'd come there when that stranger had tried to invade his mind. He knew that because of the involuntary growl that forced itself out of his throat when he felt the fragile bones in the woman's neck shatter to powder in his grip, because of the hot, lusty pleasure that made him grin maniacally as her blood poured to the ground.

Zcix started laughing as he left the room, on the hunt.


	14. Chapter 2: Death Backwards

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part III:  
Fog

* * *

Chapter 2:  
Death Backwards

* * *

Author's Notes: Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21 and neox!  
Funfun and gnashy teeth thingies, it's the next chapter!

* * *

Zero lunged down a side hallway, running full-tilt, leaving a thoroughly confused X behind.

Thanks to the fact as soon as he was out of the flashlight's range the Red couldn't see a thing, he connected with a wall a few moments later, bouncing off and skidding backwards on the floor. He layed there for a few seconds, until X caught up with him.

"Do I even want to know why you took off like that?" the Blue asked flatly, staring down at Zero, who just stared back for a few minutes.

"...reaction, instincts, whatever. Somethin' creeped the hell outta me," he said, sounding confused himself as he stood. Why_had_he done that? He'd just suddenly felt like he had to run, had to get_away_from something.

_Somethin' nearby. Somethin' very wrong..._the thought was accompanyed by a sharp pain, one which Zero couldn't quite place the origins of. He winced, and X frowned.

"Are you alright? I didn't think you hit the wall_that_hard..."

"Not that. Something's wrong. It...aargh..." Zero couldn't continue, his breath constricted suddenly, and he stumbled backwards against the wall, wrapping his hands around his middle. Well, the pain had chosen a definite place to be this time, but that only made it worse. He wasn't even aware that he'd lost his balance and fallen, and the only reason he wasn't sprawled across the floor was because X had caught him.

"Zero?!" the Blue asked, shaking his blonde companion. Zero choked on air for a few minutes, gasping and panting.

"Oh God...not this again..." the Red whispered, his eyes sliding shut. "No..." X could only stand there, momentarily at a loss for what to do.

Then, the next he knew, he was lifted up into the air, someone behind him wrapping their hand around his neck and plucking him off the ground easily. He lost his grip on Zero and the flashlight at the same time; the Red hit the floor with a thud, not moving, and the flashlight shattered, plunging everything into darkness. X gasped, trying to force air into his lungs past the crushing grip on his throat.

"Now listen," the person behind him said, and their voice was low and grating, tailing off into a trilling warble, like they couldn't keep it under control, "I have absolutely no qualms with taking care of pestersome folks who get in my way, and I'm in the mood for some amusement. Do you have any good reason why I shouldn't finish you off right now?" X couldn't speak; the only noise he could make was a low, hoarse gurgling. Suddenly he was thrown to the ground, landing on his back, and whoever it was that had grabbed him put a heavy foot on top of him. A heavy hoof, more like. "Okay, so you're a little stuck. That's perfectly alright. I might be too, in your situation. Now, perhaps I shouldn't be so rude. It might not be customary for you people to introduce yourselves to dead men, but hey, why the hell not? I'm bored as all fuck anyway." A light switched on a ways down the hall, buzzing and flickering fitfully. Another, closer. X still couldn't see who it was on top of him; they were in a thick veil of shadow that would only be broken when the light directly overhead came on. "My name is Maverick." The rest of the lights all came to life at once, halfway blinding X, and revealing the monster.

* * *

Zcix walked down the hallway without concern. The place was empty. He'd already killed everyone.

They had all been human. That disgusted him.

"Well, bastards, see what you get for not having any reploids to help out...?" he whispered, looking down at one of the many piles of assorted body parts. Blood soaked him head to toe, but he didn't care. He was well beyond caring.

_You done?_

_...heeheehee...that was fun...but just because they pay...doesn't mean you get let off easy...hee..hekk..._

Zcix sighed.

"Know that already..." then he screamed, and fell to the ground, a sudden, biting agony ripping into his chest.

_Wonder what the other Zero is doing right now?! Heeheeeheeee, we know!! We know what he's doing...  
__...he's dieing backwards, so why don't we do the same thing to you?!_

The copy reploid shrieked, thrashing pointlessly for a second before curling up on himself. His body trembled uncontrollably.

"Stop it...stop..." he sobbed through gritted teeth, but the Voices only laughed.

* * *

"Michael Light Uther," B. said, his voice almost sad. The human was frowning but stayed silent. He had no doubts what this visit would be about. It was the first time he'd spoken to B. since turning away from his cause a few years back. "Grandson of Dr. Thomas Light...possibly one of the finest in the fields of robotics...living a perfectly fine life..." Michael wished slightly that B. would at least raise his head and pretend to look at him. "...why, then, would you decide to help your grandfather's killer? What possessed you to offer your aid to a psychotic murderer? Did he threaten you, perhaps? But no, it's not that. Any threats he made are long dead, aren't they? Perhaps you've grown to like him. A demon. Because he's with X, is it? X. Heh._Megaman_X. Rock's little brother, eh? What a laugh." B.'s voice was not sad anymore. It was cruel, harsh, biting. "Whatever. You chose to ruin yourself by associating with them. I'll not say I can control you."

"You're wrong about them, B.," the human said softly. He looked thoroughly miserable; B. wasn't going to believe a word he said, but he had to try anyway. "X explained the entire story to me. He told me everything that's happened to them. He's not a_liar_, B. I'm sick of you judging people before you know anything about them!" Michael slammed his fist down on the table beside him, suddenly looking infuriated. B. remained in silence for a brief while. Then he slowly took of his pure-black sunglasses, setting them down and rubbing his eyes, before lifting his head and seeming to actually look at the human, running a hand through his thick, dark brown hair. He only seemed to be looking. Whatever color those eyes had been, time had faded them to a dull off-white. Those eyes were completely blind, seeing nothing.

"Michael, listen to me..."

"No, I'm done listening to you. I've listened to you since I met you, and all you've told me are cruel lies." The human was backing away. "I trusted you for a while, because it was almost like we were related. But no more. I'm sorry, Blues." The small robot snarled suddenly, clenching his hand into a fist.

"You're an idiot, Michael. Your grandfather would've been ashamed of you. There is no forgiveness for the things that demon has done. He_killed_them_all,_Michael!!! Don't you even_care?!?!_" Blues demanded, literally shaking with rage. His sightless eyes were contradictingly flat and emotionless.

"Of course I care," the human replied, "but that was a long time ago. Yes, Zero was a killer. But did you ever wonder why?" That caught the blind machine short, and he frowned. Finally, after Michael remained silent, waiting for an answer, Blues threw up his hands in frustration.

"Does it matter?!" he shouted, and turned, walking away.

"He did it because someone hurt him," the human said softly. "Someone hurt him very badly, so he struck out against everyone else. Does that sound like anyone you know, B.? It should. ...you're no better than him." The robot stopped, but didn't turn around, didn't say anything.

Then he whirled, and there was a low, smooth click. His buster fired, leaving a scorched hole in the wall. Michael yelped and jumped away—had Blues been aiming at him, he would've already been dead—and the robot laughed.

"If I'm no better than he is...then why the_fuck_are you trying to talk me out of it?!" he snapped, swinging his hand in a wild, pointless gesture. He kept his buster trained on Michael. It was ancient, completely outdated, but it was still more than enough to kill a frail human. "What the hell do you hope to accomplish, talking to a madman?!" Then he stormed out, leaving Michael standing there, alone and simply staring off where the robot had gone.

"...because I thought you were better than that, B. But you're just another vicious machine out for blood, aren't you? ..."

* * *

"...oh hell...oh fucking hell..." were the only words that X could seem to get out of his mouth. Maverick would have grinned horridly, had he been capable of such an expression. The monster's tongue, a rope of linked black and silver, slid out from between jagged black fangs and slithered across where his lips would have been.

The hideous creature looked like something that had been dead for a month and then had gotten back up again. His form was skeletal, draped with something that might've been cloth or flesh or some blend of the two, solid black. His leather-wrapped skull was barely reminiscent of some sort of lizard in shape, and his eyes were dark, sunken orbs that flickered with something horrible. His arms were thick, apelike, hanging down in front of him, and from behind them came a second pair, more like wings with clawlike fingers extending from their tips. The beast had a tail—it was like his tongue, silver and black wound together in a braidlike pattern—that was tipped with three blades, each one a different length, each one jagged and bent oddly. His bowed legs ended in broad hooves.

"I'll save you your breath for questions by saying simply that you've never met anything like me," the monster was chuckling, now, and purring, its voice sliding out of its throat like a blade being pulled from its sheath. "I'm not from your world." The monster held up one hand, curling its thick fingers slightly. Then it started to laugh for real.

X's mind simply shut down.

* * *

Wheruvan shook his head, shuddering slightly.

"That beast...out of all the creatures I've dealt with over the years, I'd daresay he's the most unnerving of them all..." then the man laughed at himself. "Well. Here's hoping he'll let me keep my life after all this is through." He tossed back the shot glass of potent alchohol, then shook his head vigorously. Wheruvan was many things, but he was not a drinker, and it didn't take much to get him tipsy. He only ever touched alchohol of any sort after a deal with_that_type of monster.

"Hope you're happy, B.," he said, his speach already slurred. He wasn't even closed to finished, filling the shot glass again. He would much rather wake up with a hangover fit to kill than wake up knowing full well what danger he'd put himself in. "This is the second time I've had to meet up with that_thing_. But you wouldn't know about the first time, would you?" He started laughing in an uneven voice, then shook his head again, trying to find his balance. He swallowed a third glass and slumped down onto the table, afraid he might fall on the floor if he didn't. "No, you wouldn't know that I'm the one who set Maverick on Zero the first time and started all this. But hey, it was just a job, nothing personal." He started laughing again.

* * *

_Enough._

_Oh, but whyyyyyyy?!_

_Shut up, you fucking_moron_. Just do what we say._

_But I was having fuuuuuun..._

_Fun time's_over_, bitch._

Zcix opened his eyes with a low sob, his vision blurred by tears. He'd clawed his own shoulders open on accident, but he ignored the blood fanning down his sides for now.

"...you...just go away...leave...don't come back..."

_There's something you have to do._

_Ooooooooh heeheeheehee._

Zcix closed his eyes again, shuddering.

"...don't wanna do anything..."

_Just do what we tell you._

_What weeeeeeeee saaaa—_

_Shut_up_, you_dumbass_!_

_...bah..._

_Do what we tell you to do and we'll go away and never come back._

Zcix forced his open again, and this time he uncurled himself, standing up, staggering and leaning against the wall.

"...fine."

* * *

He opened one eye halfway, feeling strange. He was numb, completely and utterly numb. Cold. His body wasn't responding to any of the commands he gave it. He realized vaguely that he wasn't even breathing, but the cold that seeped into him seemed to make sure that he wouldn't get trouble from it. He found himself staring at a floor that was covered in dust, grit, and...  
...blood.

"Hello, Zero. I know you can hear me, even if you can't do much else." The reploid couldn't respond; he couldn't even seem to look up off the floor. Too numb. Too cold. "Here, hang on a second." He was suddenly being picked up, thick arms wrapped around him, lifting his limp body. He hung like a broken doll, unable to do anything else. The stranger's clawlike fingers caught in his hair and jerked his head back roughly, but the Red felt no more than a vague sensation which couldn't really be described as pain. "Lookie there, see?" Zero's face remained locked in its mildly disinterested expression, but inside his mind, he was screaming and fighting, trying desperately to regain control of his numbed body, battling the cold for all that he was worth.

X was against the wall. He was up_on_the wall, hanging there, and Zero couldn't tell if he was simply unconscious or...

His clothes had been torn to rags, and his body was covered in bright red slashes. Blood coated the wall behind him, pooling on the ground below slowly. The thing holding him there was the monster's tail. All three blades were punched through the reploid's shoulder, pinning him.

"Come to think of it, I almost think I recognize this guy! Didn't he used to be a pacifist?" the stranger started laughing horribly, his laugh somewhere between a fiery roar and a sickening purr. "What the hell goes through the minds of someone like that? It doesn't make any sense to_me_. Oh well, who gives a fuck anyway?!" The monster dropped Zero without a care. "My, my, just like old times, eh?" The beast hummed for a few minutes, some tuneless thing that made Zero feel even colder, if that was possible. "Oh well. Enough reminiscing. You remember me, don't you, Zero? Your ol' pal, Maverick? You weren't supposed to remember, but I know you did anyway. Such a shame..." The thing sighed heavily, then it wrapped its claws in Zero's hair again, heaving him up off the floor. "Now, what should I do with you? I tried to control you once. You were my puppet for a while, my little demon. Such a pretty demon at that...oh well, that didn't work for much longer than I thought it would. I could kill you, but what's the point? You're already dead anyway." Zero found himself staring into that beast's face, and his body was shaking. He still couldn't feel it, but he knew he was shaking uncontrollably, faced with this..._thing_, this_abomination_. "You remember that, don't you. You died and never came back. But what would happen if you came back now? The rest of you, I mean. Oh, I wonder?" Maverick laughed, and threw the unresponsive Zero to the floor yet again. "This is just so fucking fun!"

* * *

He stared at himself in the mirror, while in the back of his head the Voices made their comments. He ignored them, mostly.

Why did they tell him to do these sort of things? He didn't know. He assumed it had some sort of importance, or at least that it would somewhere along the line. And he supposed it made some sort of sense, anyway.

_You won't need armor, so that's one less worry._

The other two Voices had mostly shut up now, leaving everything to the quietest of them. Zcix was thankful for that; just one Voice he could deal with pretty easily.

"Why do you want...? No, nevermind. No questions..." he shook his head, and marvelled at how different it seemed now.

He'd cut his hair, was the main difference. It wasn't really short—it still went down to his shoulders—but it was a lot shorter than it had been. He'd dyed it black, too, and that made it look a bit different as well. The important thing, the Voice had said, was that he not look exactly like Zero. It was strange. Zcix still remembered, in the vaguest sense, being Zero once. In a way, it had made him flinch at the thought of cutting his hair, but in another way, he was relieved by it. He wasn't Zero anymore, and he didn't want to pretend.

"Makes some sense..." The Voice had told him what he was going to be doing. It scared him. He didn't want to go back and find Zero again; not after he'd been killed by him once. It didn't matter that he was on Zero's side this time. He doubted the Red would forgive him very easily for what he'd done.

And there was the fact that he smelled like human blood. The smell was hard to get rid of, and the Voice had told him not to even try. He felt no remorse whatsoever for killing off all those humans; he'd hated them. But he knew that the two reploids might not trust him if he showed up smelling like he'd just walked out of a slaughterhouse.

Nothing to be done for it now. He had to show up anyway. Otherwise they would all die...

...that was what the Voice said anyway...


	15. Chapter 3: Losing Battle

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part III:  
Fog

* * *

Chapter 3:  
Losing Battle

* * *

Author's Notes: I tried to add indentations to the paragraphs, but QuickEdit don't like me no more!!! So no indents for you.  
Yay for reviewer, e'er-loyal Crystalstorm21!

* * *

_C'mon Zero...move, dammit!_ No matter how much the reploid struggled, he couldn't get his lifeless body to respond. It was, as Maverick said, as if he were already dead.

But since when did he let that sort of thing get in his way? He may've been laying on the floor in a twisted heap, half-crushed under the monster's hoof, but he knew, he _knew_, he was going to get up and thrash this thing. Now if only he could actually do it.

_Mind over matter...fuck! This is _not _working!_

"Having a little trouble, Z?" Maverick practically giggled, leaning down so that he could look straight into his face. "You're really just a weak bastard aren't you? For all the show you put up, you're really nothing better than some jackass who freezes up right when your friend—no, your _lover_, isn't he?—needs you the most!"

_Okay, you motherfucking son of a bitch, you have _really_ pissed me off._ It wasn't at all a gradual thing; one moment, Zero couldn't even feel his own body, and the next, he had exploded into motion, throwing Maverick off of him and rolling to his feet. He whipped his sabre out of its holster—it wasn't really his, of course, it was the one he'd taken from Zcix's corpse—and swung it down with all the force he could manage, straight through the beast's tail, severing it. There was no blood. Maverick made not a sound, save for a slight, amused humming, as Zero ripped the beast's disconnected tail out of X's body, freeing the Blue and holding him tightly. Maverick chuckled, lifting his chopped tail, and shook it slightly at Zero.

"You really are a dumbass," the beast informed him, and then from the scorched tip of his tail sprouted a new length, blades and all. The blonde hissed, setting X down gently against the wall, and turned.

"Look who's talking," he snarled, and charged, sabre cutting a fiery arc through the air. Maverick leapt and twisted, springing away, showing agility that should've been impossible for his cumbersome-looking form. Laughing like a lunatic, the horrid beast snapped his tail around behind Zero and struck him across the back, knocking him straight into Maverick's awaiting arms. The reploid found himself wrapped in a grip that threatened to crush him, the monster looking down at him, dark, sunken eyes gleaming.

"I was starting to miss you, Zero, but I've change my mind now. I was considering making you Bloodrush again, just for the hell of it, but I think I'll turn you inside out instead!" Zero struggled mightily against the monster's grip, but Maverick's strength surpassed his own. Then the wicked beast let go, and kicked Zero's feet out from under him, but his intent to stomp on the reploid was ruined when Zero's sabre came up, spiking through Maverick's hoof. "Hum. You really don't get it, do you? You can't hurt me." The blonde reploid jumped away just moments before the beast's tail came whipping down, cracking a hole in the floor where he had been. "Oh, what the hell. It's fun to fight stupid people, they don't know when to give up!"

* * *

Dice's expression was one of vague curiousity as he wandered the decimated halls of the CyberCerebellum building. The only time that expression changed was when he happened to step on one of the various pieces of human flesh laying about, and then he frowned distastefully. Not that there seemed to be anyone about to notice it...and even if there had been, it was all hidden beneath his wolfskull helmet.

"Oh," was all he said when he came face-to-face with the obvious cause for the mass slaughter. "Hello, Zcix. Fancy meeting you here." He recognized him for who he was even with the slight appearance change. The bat really didn't care one way or another _why_ the reploid had decided to cut and dye his hair, no more than he cared that Zcix had killed every last human being in the building. "I take it you're leaving, then? I hope you don't intend to go out looking like _that_. It may not matter when your only company is the dead, but living people tend to notice when you're running around in your birthday suit, eh?" He knew he was tempting death by even remaining near a machine as unstable as Zcix, but he didn't really care much. Death might be an amusing change of pace. Zcix stared at him—through him, more like—and seemed to be listening intently to something Dice couldn't hear. The bat had little doubt as to what _that_ may've been. Someone as loony as Zcix often came complete with voices in their head.

"...hm..." the copy reploid turned and walked away, ignoring Dice completely. The bat shrugged to himself, then undid the many latches and ties on his thick cloak, pulling it off. Underneath he wore only a slight semblance of light armor, nothing more than a thinly plated strip around his torso, with a sleeveless ash-black undersuit. Trotting to catch up with the longer-legged Zcix, he tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"Y'want?" he asked, offering the dark cloak. "I've got no use for it at the moment. You can keep whatever happens to be in the pockets." The humanoid reploid blinked at the bat, confused.

"Why're you giving this...?" he asked, but accepted the cloak when Dice shoved it into his hands.

"Because, as I said, I've got no use for it. Besides that," and now the bat pulled off his black helmet and grinned, "I have a feeling that it'll come in handy for whatever you're going to do. And you _are_ going to do something, eh?" The copy reploid still looked confused, standing there, holding the piles of dark fabric.

"Why?" was all he asked, and Dice sighed.

"You really are a bugger for reasons, aren't you? Alright, I guess I'll attempt to explain." The dark-furred reploid cleared his throat as though he were making a grand speach. "My alignment is with whoever I find the most interesting. You, my friend, are very interesting. Therefor, I see no reason not to offer you a little spot of help. Just don't expect me to throw my life on the line for you." Zcix was clearly still confused, but decided to finally drop the issue. Instead, he shrugged and continued down the hall. Dice followed along, silent.

* * *

Had Bass been the kind of reploid to be struck with premonitions, or anything of that sort, he might've had some idea what was going on.

Unfortunately, Bass had never had that sort of gift, and so he was caught completely by surprise when two reploids he had never expected to come face-to-face with again showed up.

"You," was all the Ebony Warrior managed to say when Zcix walked up in front of him. He knew it was Zcix; no one else would've looked nearly identical to Zero—save now he had apparently decided to change his hair—and had that look of madness in his eyes. His outfit was decidedly odd; the clothes looked like they'd belonged to some sort of businessman or something, and didn't fit correctly. Taken in combination with the heavy cloak and lack of shoes, the reploid certainly looked uncoordinated. The other reploid, standing just behind him, Bass recognized to be that bat from the darkened hallway outside Reapa's lab.

"Yes," Zcix replied after a long silence. "No questions. No time for questions. There's trouble." The Ebony furrowed his brow, frowning stormily.

"Now wait just a minute—" he began, but Zcix cut him off with a furious screech, pouncing on him and knocking him to the ground. Dice watched dispassionately in the background.

"No questions, dammit! _No questions!!!_" the copy reploid hissed, staring intently into Bass's bloodruby eyes. The purple-haired machine gritted his teeth and shoved Zcix off of him, standing.

"No questions, no cooperation," he said blandly, turning around and making as if to walk inside and lock the door behind him. Zcix gave a frustrated half-growl, half-wail, grabbing Bass's shoulders and bodily dragging him away from the building. As he pulled the surprised reploid, he made a slightly disorganized attempt to explain what he'd been told by the Voices.

"Something's gone...wrong...unexpected. A demon out of the past. S'come back and it's going to kill. Have to be quick. The real Zero will die otherwise. Or maybe he won't, maybe it'll be worse than that. Maybe he'll come back to life. Either way...have to be...quick..." Bass pulled free of his grip, standing.

"...what the hell are you trying to say?!" he demanded. "What's going on?!" Dice cut in now, sighing mentally.

"What he's trying to say, my friend," the bat said smoothely, "is that if you don't fucking _hurry up_, some very bad things are going to happen. So get your ass moving. Get your armor. I have the feeling you'll need it."

* * *

He was smashed against the wall for the third time. The indentation there was getting rather deep; the next time he might simply go straight through. Zero staggered to his feet, shaking his head, trying to clear the blood out of his vision. The acrid, metallic taste of it was thick in his mouth, and his ears were ringing to the point where he could no longer hear Maverick's endless, purring chuckle. The monster's tail snapped up between his legs, throwing him up into the ceiling—Zero was extremely glad for his armor at that moment, otherwise that would've been exceedingly painful—and twisted around his leg, swinging him through the air carelessly. Once again he and the wall were brought together, but it still stubbornly refused to give way, despite the weight and momentum of the object crashing into it. Zero hit the floor and was a bit slower getting up this time; he could see his own blood coating the floor from the numerous cuts and gouges anywhere the monster's tail-blades had found a chance to slice through his undersuit, and for a moment he could only stare at the pools of dark liquid, illuminated harshly by the flickering lights overhead. The blonde reploid wondered idly, as he pushed himself up painfully, why Maverick had turned the lights on—the best would have more of an advantage in the dark, with Zero being completely blind. The Red doubted that _thing_ needed light in order to see.

But then, Maverick needed no advantage. Zero had been fighting hard for what seemed like an eternity to him—he supposed it was more like a half hour—and Maverick showed not a scratch for it. The blonde reploid had chopped off his limbs, split his skull, stabbed out his eyes, and skewered his torso—all the damage had simply vanished moments later. Zero would have felt at least a little more satisfied if the thing would just _bleed_ a little! Maverick's lost pieces lay scattered all through the hall, some of them still twitching fitfully, but the beast had not spilled a drop of liquid of any kind. Even his tongue was dry. His tongue, which at that moment shot out of wherever it was kept concealed—presumably somewhere down in the beast's throat, since it was too long to fit in his mouth—and wrapped around Zero's neck. Maverick laughed boomingly, his voice rippling like flames, and shook Zero, using his tongue like an extra limb.

"I don't often try to eat metal, but even reploid blood is better than none!" Maverick roared, his speach uninhibited by his tongue being out of his mouth that way. Zero had since come to the conclusion that he didn't use his mouth—or even his throat—to speak.

The monster's tongue snapped back, and the only thing that saved the pain-slowed Zero from decapitation by the beast's grizzly teeth was that, at that moment, a jagged shard of metal whipped through the air between them. It went straight through Maverick's tongue, severing it for the fourth time during the battle. Maverick's jaws snapped shut quickly out of surprise, accidentally biting off the remainder of his tongue, which fell on the ground and flopped like dying eel. Zero's momentum sent him flying into the monster, knocking the both of them to the ground, and the Red took advantage of it to plunge his sabre viciously into the thing's head. He knew it would get him nowhere, but it still felt satisfying when he chopped Maverick's skull to pieces, completely beheading the beast, then half-dragging himself away. He had learned one thing, at least—when Maverick lost his head completely, it took him a bit longer to recover. The headless body staggered, its balanced momentarily destroyed, clawing about as though trying to find something to lean on, while its stump of a neck snapped and bulged outwards weirdly. Within three minutes, a new skull had forced its way out of the gaping wound, pushing the tattered remnants of the old off in the process. Maverick began laughing the instant his new head was in place, but stopped short for a moment when he saw Zero and X. They were both standing, if barely, side-by-side, staring at him with an expression he rarely saw in the eyes of his victims.

It was a hybrid of emotions. Fear was there, certainly, but so was the burning flame of anger and determination. X was using Zero for support, leaning against him, clearly still not really recovered from the beating he'd already received. Without his armor, he had no buster, but that didn't seem to deter him; instead, his shaking hands were locked around the pieces of shrapnel he'd picked up.

"Y'know what, Mav? You're starting to _really_ fuckin' piss me off," Zero growled lowly. Maverick giggled.

"Well it's about time."

* * *

"You boys take care," Dice snickered, but Bass promptly grabbed the bat by his overlong tail when he attempted to fly off without another word.

"Oh no, you damn flying vermin! You're not skipping out!" the Ebony snarled, dragging the reploid back down to the earth with brute strength and pinning him. "You wanted to join this happy little troupe, now you're gonna have to stick around." Zcix, however, was wringing his hands.

"Bass, come _on!_ Have to _hurry!!_" the copy reploid whimpered, skipping from foot to foot like an anxious child. Dice seemed to sympathize with the black-haired Zero clone, but also did not desire in the least to throw himself into whatever danger they were getting into.

"Compromise," the bat said, his voice low and rushed, emphasizing the fact that he wanted to be away from there, "you take my helmet. Trust me, it'll do you good. It's got something called the Silencer built into it. I'd explain but it'd take too much time. You'll think of something, trust me." He clicked open the latch that held the helmet's lower jaw to the upper, folding it open and pulling it off quickly. The bat's rust-colored hair was flattened from him wearing it for so long, and his eyes held a slightly wild look. He shoved the black metal device into Bass's hands, then was up and off too quickly for the purple-haired reploid to have caught him if he had tried.

"...Silencer..." Zcix whispered, then shook his head sharply. "Bring it. Come on!! Quick!!" The pair were running, then, Zcix dashing headlong. Bass, however, had a better idea.

"Hold on tight," he growled lowly, wrapping his arms around the other reploid's waist, and kicked on his dash thrusters. The pair shot off in a burst of speed, Zcix pointing the way.

* * *

"Augh...shit tha's gonna 'urt in the mornin'..." Zero slurred, wiping a hand across his face in the hopes of removing some of the blood. He'd taken a blow full in the mouth, and now his jaw was slightly crunched. Worsening the situation still, his eyes refused to re-focus properly. He'd really taken a heavy hit that time. The warped vision was killing his depth perception, and his sense of balance was suffering from the head trauma as well. "Fuck..."

X, for the most part, was staying well back. He really couldn't help at all. All he could do was hope to draw Maverick off whenever things started looking to severe, which was happening with increasing frequency.

And the monster was clearly just playing with them. He was just waiting for the time when Zero wouldn't get up again. That was obvious by the way he laughed whenever the Red actually managed to land a hit on him. It was all completely and utterly pointless. There was no possible way for them to win.

And yet, still, the reploids held onto hope. Perhaps, had Zero simply given in to the pain and weariness coursing through his battered form, he could've shut everything out, gone into voluntary stasis, and it wouldn't've hurt. Just give up, run away from the pain.

But Zero made it a point not to run away from things. He had to hold out, had to hope that somehow...somehow...they would find a way to get through Maverick's seemingly inpenetrable defenses.

The Red just wished that hope made a better barrier between him and the monster's tail, when it slammed into his middle and chucked him straight through the weakened wall. The room beyond was totally dark, and the blonde reploid found himself severely compelled to let exhaustion claim his consciousness.

He didn't even get the choice, for Maverick's tail had wound in his hair—oh, how he was regretting that rediculously long hair of his now—and was dragging him roughly back into the lit hallway. The tail's journey was halted when another sharp piece of shrapnel bit into it, and its owner twisted his head around on his neck to look at X blandly. Then he let go of Zero altogether, turned, and charged straight for the unarmored and effectively helpless Blue.

X couldn't hope to run, battered and depending on the wall to keep himself up as he was. Instead, he prayed to God that his aim would stay true...  
...and took out Maverick's right eye with a perfectly thrown blade of twisted metal. The monster came to a screeching hault, actually falling forwards on his face, and paused a moment to rip the annoyance out of his skull. It took his eye with it, the blackened cord connecting it ripping with a dry _snap_, and he laughed aloud and the expression X made. Purely for the amusement of it, Maverick threw the impaled eye back to the reploid, bursting out at laughter at the way X cringed when it landed at his feet. Dismemberment just wasn't the Blue's thing.

"Are you two having fun yet?" Maverick asked loudly. He purred out another slick chuckle when Zero's sabre—he was thinking of the sabre as his, now, wherever he'd obtained it—bit into the back of his neck and removed his head from his shoulders yet again. Again his body stumbled about for a few minutes as the head was replaced, then Maverick whirled on Zero. "Not that I'm getting bored or anything, but what the fuck do you hope to accomplish by chopping off my head so many times? You're littering!" The beast pointed to all his removed bodyparts that practically carpeted the hallway.

* * *

"My God," Bass panted. He was out of breath, having had to run the rest of the distance once he'd worn out his dash jets—the things were old, after all—and now added to that was the shock of their destination. "Why didn't you tell me we were coming _here?!_"

"Because," Zcix, who was also panting heavily seeing as Bass had dropped him as soon as his dash jets wore out, replied, "didn't know it was here we needed to come. We just needed to go wherever Zero was." Bass drew in a deep breath.

"We're storming straight into trouble, you know that?"

"Yeah. Always seem to be."

"I'm blaming you for everything that happens from this point on."

"Okay."

"...let's get moving."

"Yeah."

The two had no idea what they were walking into when they charged into the fully-lit halls of the ancient Wily lab.


	16. Chapter 4: Mind Trap

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part III:  
Fog

* * *

Chapter 4:  
Mind Trap

* * *

Author's Notes: Y'know, I would seriously hate to be in Bass's shoes right at the start of this chapter... Can you imagine, wandering the halls of a place so dead and desolate, lit for reasons unexplained, and your only company is a psychotic who tried to kill you and almost succeeded?  
This chapter is short. I did that on purpose, to allow people to screech to a sudden hault and, hopefully, be caught in that last line. I have no idea if there's an official name for it, but I'd like to call it "brain-messing" so I'm gonna call it "brain-messing." Hate me, for I can toy with your very _minds!!!  
_Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21 and Imbri of the Moon!!!

* * *

"This is fucking creepy," Bass muttered, walking down the hallway. "There shouldn't still be any power in this place. How the hell are those lights working...?" Zcix just shuddered, looking around nervously. In his hands was the sabre which he'd found in one of the pockets of Dice's cloak. Zero's old sabre. It was still spattered and stained with his old blood.

"Don't know," the copy said at last, quietly. Then he froze, his eyes widening in the nature of a startled animal's, when there was a low, resounding crash somewhere deep in the bowels of the fortress. "...Zero...!!!" Zcix's voice was almost a squeak, and he took off like a shot, down a hall in the direction the sound had come from. Bass followed him as quickly as he could, but the longer-legged reploid was outpacing him quickly.

"Zcix! Wait! Slow down!" the Ebony growled, and Zcix looked back over his shoulder. The look in his eyes said one thing: _I'm terrified._ But he did slow down, swinging around one corner, down a ladder set in the floor, through a pair of doors, down a staircase, and around another twisting bend in the hall.

Then they came upon the battle scene. Bass's eyes went as wide as Zcix's had already been, their flat crimson suddenly alive with a horrified, enraged revulsion.

"What the fuck is that thing?!" he gasped, and the monster which had been leaned over Zero's motionless form, looking about ready to take a bite out of him or something of the sort, lifted his head slightly in order to look straight at Bass and chuckle.

"I'm Maverick," was all he said. Then something happened that none of them had expected.

Zcix grabbed Dice's wolfskull helmet out of Bass's grip, his other hand clutched tightly around Zero's sabre. His eyes had lost any vestiges of sanity that they had previously held on to, gleaming a metallic, furious sort of murk-blue that was suddenly flecked with flat gray. He bared his teeth, and his voice was one which immediately roused the half-conscious X and Zero to their senses, as well as made Bass take a few hurried steps away from the copy. It was a voice everyone in the room recognized. It was a hissing, almost luxurious purr, soft as silk and frigid as frozen steel, sharp as the edge of a blade. It was the voice that had belonged to a demon which simply refused to go away.

Zcix spoke with Bloodrush's voice. In that moment, Zcix was Bloodrush, fully possessed by the cold monster.

"Well a fucking jolly hello to you, Maverick!" Bloodrush practically shrieked. His grip was so tight on Zero's sabre that the metal was beginning to warp ever-so-slightly. His entire body shook with rage. "Remember me?! You dropped me in with these motherfucking bastards, so I should hope so, 'cuz I sure as hell remember you!! Oh yes." His expression twisted into a sick semblance of a grin. "Oh fucking yes. You fucking _promised_ me, Maverick! You _promised_ I wouldn't run into trouble! A fox in a fucking chicken coup, you said! Well look at me _now_, you bastard! Look at what I've _become!!!_ Isn't it so fucking _grand?!_" Maverick's actions were very different from when he'd encountered Zero. Faced with this, a demon of his own making, suddenly Maverick's speech was tentative, his voice calm and attempting to be placating.

"Look, Bloodrush, I swear, if I'd known what would happen to you—"

"_Bullshit!!_" the maddened demon cut him off, swinging his arm for emphasis. Zero's old sabre sprang to life, the ferocious neon green of the blade warping the light of the cramped hallway. "You knew _damn well_ what would happen to me!! Don't pretend you didn't, you son of a bitch!!" Maverick actually cringed, taking a shuffling step backwards.

"Bloodrush, calm down! Look, I can fix it, alright? Just give me a chance to—"

"No way, bastard," Bloodrush hissed. His expression had calmed somewhat, into a sadistic little smile. He didn't blink. "I've been through hell. Now it's your turn." Holding up Dice's wolfskull helmet in one hand, he rose Zero's old sabre. "What do you think will happen when I split this thing in two? I'll tell you. It'll unlock the Silence field. None of you dumbasses know what that is, but I do. For a reploid, it'll shut down all emotion, turn them temporarily into a plain old machine. Typically that makes them shut down 'till their minds can reconfigure and recover." The smile was trembling, Bloodrush's lips twitching as though he were holding back laughter. "But for you, Maverick...you're no reploid..." There was a long pause. Maverick watched Bloodrush in utter silence. "...you'll just get trapped inside your own mind, kinda like I've been for so long. See yah around, Mavvy." The sabre's blade arced up, biting clean through black metal, cleaving the wolfskull helmet in two.

None of the occupants of the room had any idea what happened. The instant Bloodrush broke Dice's helmet, every last one of them lost consciousness.

* * *

B. nodded silently, at last in agreement with the mechanic he'd come to. The rat-based reploid shook his head, running his long, thin fingers through thin hair that was really more like the fur that covered him grown longer in one patch on the back of his skull.

"You're one tough customer," he snorted, but scooped up the new design without further comment. "No offense to you, sir, but trying to upgrade your current body would be pointless for all the changes you've made. I'll get word to you when I've got the new one built." B. nodded again. He'd said very little the entire time, and preferred to keep it that way. The rat twitched his long whiskers, and, as soon as the maroon-clad machine was out of sight, hunched his shoulders and shuddered. "Unpleasent little fellow..."

* * *

Zero's body seemed to have come back to wakefullness before his mind, thus leading to his first thoughts following the lines of,

_Shit oh fuck ow..._ Actual cognitive thought didn't begin until a few moments later, when he forced open his eyes and could draw focus enough off his aching body to wonder where he was. Then he remembered the previous incidents, and his new wonder was, _How fucking long have I been laying here?_ Testing out his condition, he quickly discovered that his limbs were not going to cooperate. Probably a combination of loss of blood and just general wear and tear. Not great. Looking around to whatever extent he could, he almost choked on his own breath when he found himself staring into Maverick's eyes.

But the monster's eyes were completely vacant. They contained no horrible gleam, now. No vicious spark of malignent intelligence. Maverick's body was laying there, completely unharmed, but his mind was somewhere else.

The next thing to happen was that someone wrapped their arms around him and picked him up off the floor. Blinking slowly, and feeling generally like his reaction speed was about equivalent to that of a rock, Zero managed to roll his head back on his neck enough to stare into eyes which were very, very familiar. Most likely because they looked identical to his own.

"Sorry, Zero," Zcix said, "for the things I've done." He was genuinely sorry, tears running down his face. He looked away, breaking eye contact quickly, and carried Zero away from the crumpled form of Maverick.

"...hey, no biggie...everybody tries to do me in sooner or later..." the Red wheezed, finding breath hard to come by. Zcix looked over at Bass, who was just now regaining consciousness.

"Can you carry X?" the copy asked, and Bass, putting a hand to his forehead, nodded. Then he looked up at Zcix sharply.

"...where did Bloodrush...?" he began, but the Zero-clone shook his head slowly.

"He's gone." There was a brief silence, which was broken when X groaned in an insensate fashion.

"Let's get the hell outta here," the Ebony growled, picking X up off the floor. Zcix nodded quickly.

"You have a teleporter?" he asked, and Bass considered for a moment.

"Yeah, if it still works. My stuff seems to've been going out piece by piece. I really gotta get it upgraded sooner or later," he replied at last. "Get close, it's got crappy range." The copy-Zero stood beside Bass, actually more leaned against him, as the reploid mentally plugged in the coordinates for Michael's place. The four vanished quickly, every last one of them unbelievably glad to leave that place behind.

In the silent hallway, the lights flickered and faded, going out one by one. The silent Maverick was left in darkness.


	17. Chapter 5: The Destroyed

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part III:  
Fog

* * *

Chapter 5:  
The Destroyed

* * *

Author's Notes: This is it, folks. The final chapter of Bloodrush II. At long last, this nigh-endless tale has spun itself out. There will be a final epilogue, of course.  
Yay for reviewers, Iniora Nackatori, Crystalstorm21, and Imbri of the Moon.

* * *

Wheruvan wound his fingers in his blue-dyed hair, gripping his skull so tightly he thought, in some idle corner of his mind, it might simply crack and rid him of all this trouble.

"Gurk...wretched...it's all for nothing..." he snarled lowly. He could barely manage to raise his own voice above a whisper, but he couldn't surpress the way it trembled unsteadily with rage.

The cause of his rage lay in a diamond-shaped mirror resting on the table which occupied the far wall of the small room. It was framed in quartz, which had been painstakingly carved into patterns of interlocked spider's legs. The only thing that made this mirror not-exactly a mirror was that it did not show the room around it.

Instead, its flat surface was pure black. But not long ago, it had been reflecting to its owner the events in a hall deep within the Wily fortress. Wheruvan stood up suddenly, knocking over his chair in the process.

"They've got the devil's luck, the lot of them. Why are they so fucking hard to _kill?!_"

* * *

"_MIKE!!!_" Bass roared—and when Bass roared, it really was a roar—as soon as he got the door to the man's house-slash-workshop open. Seeing as his arms were full of unconscious reploid, he'd kicked it down. That wouldn't make Michael too happy, but tough.

"You owe me a new door," the human informed him, and then took in the situation. "Shit! This is always happening to you guys! C'mon!" As with every other time, he ushered them into the back room, directing Bass to lay X on the repair table. Zero had to be layed on the floor, since Michael only had one table. As soon as that was accomplished, they were chased out and the door slammed shut behind them.

"Does he _always_ act like that?" Zcix asked, staring at the door over his shoulder and frowning. Bass nodded.

"Always." There was a stretched silence, wherein the two reploids simply stared at each other, flat crimson eyes locked with flat blue. Neither blinked. Finally, Zcix looked away, instead focusing his gaze on the floor, folding his arms behind him.

"Y'know," Bass said suddenly, "that outfit does nothing to make you look less insane." Zcix raised an eyebrow, looking up at the Ebony.

"Bass is suddenly a fashion expert? My surprise knows no bounds," the copy snickered.

"I thought you used to be a 'we'?" Bass asked, suddenly notice the change in pronouns.

"Did I? I don't really remember...umm...did I..?" Zcix looked confused, then shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Are you guys gonna want to kill me?" The bluntness of that question made Bass blink.

"Whu? Why?"

"I tried to kill all of you," Zcix replied with a shrug. "Thought you might still be mad at me for that." Now it was Bass's turn to shrug.

"Zero already killed you for it once. What's the point in doin' it again? ...just so long as you don't go crackers on us, anyway."

"I can't promise that."

"I wouldn't've thought you could. I've got a whole family of psychos. What's one more gonna hurt?" the Ebony shook his head slightly, snickering. Then his eyes snapped open wide when Zcix half-bounded over to him and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, grinning. "Ur—! Off!"

"Oh. 'Kay," the copy backed away immediately, twitching nervously. "Note to self, Bass is not interested in physical contact..."

"Damn straight," the Ebony growled, then folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes. "Now don't bug me 'till the other two're woken up again." Zcix blinked, suddenly, for all purposes, the only one in the hallway.

"...it's really _quiet_ all of a sudden..."

* * *

_Click. Clickick. Click. Clickick._ It was the only sound present in the darkness, steady and low. Monotonous, unending. _Click. Clickick._ There was nothing else to hear it. Maverick's body was sprawled across the floor, untouched. _Click...clickick..._ The sound faded away and stopped. In the crushing lightlessness of the underground place, a melancholy voice spoke aloud.

"Will the game begin again...? A change of players, perhaps...huh..."

* * *

He wasn't supposed to be awake at the moment. He knew that much even without opening his eyes, an act which he was wholeheartedly avoiding. He couldn't stop his body from twitching spasmodically, immediately drawing the attention of...whoever it was in the room, he suspected it to be Michael. He could hear the human saying something, but the words refused to register.

Inside his head, he was too busy screaming to listen. If he'd been able to get a grip on his body, he might've been screaming out loud, but he was pretty sure the only sound he was making at the moment was a pathetic, strangled whimpering. It was hard to tell.

Had Zero been capable of more cognitive thought than he was, he might've been able to figure out what was happening, why he felt like his skull was tearing itself apart from the inside out. He might have even recalled Maverick's words—_You died and never came back. But what would happen if you came back now? The rest of you, I mean. Oh, I wonder?_

Fairy-tale stories always say the return to who you truly are, the return to the land of the living, is supposed to be some magical, glorious thing. However, after all that Zero had been through, he'd gotten his life back through his experiences.

_What happens when the living are brought back to life?_

* * *

Wheruvan stood up slowly, even that slight movement rattling the chains he'd wrapped around his wrists, ankles, neck and waist. Each one was slightly different; some held charms or gems, clasped to the glittering metallic links; others were barbed and dark; still others were fashioned of linked scales, like snakes, rather than chain links. Each one had some significance.

"Well, friends, I think now is the perfect time to strike, don't you? Come on out," he whispered, grinning. The tapping, creaking clink of old metal seemed to resonate throughout the small room from nowhere as the pale man open the door, striding out, grinning wickedly. Holding up his revealed hand—the other, as always, was hidden in his cloak—he grabbed onto something no one could see, vanishing instantly.

* * *

Michael sighed heavily, leaning against the back wall of his repair room. It had taken him a long while—even longer than usual, what with the strange issue that cropped up—to repair both X and Zero, and he was now thoroughly exhausted. He ran a hand through his half-tamed hair, closing his eyes.

He had no idea how this would turn out. X hadn't been difficult to repair—he'd been bashed up, certainly, but nothing compared to the abuse Zero's body had taken. The Red, on the other hand...not only was he shredded to the point where it was amazing he was still alive, but then something really weird had been going on while Michael tried to repair him. He was certain the reploid had woken up, but it didn't seem quite normal—he'd gotten no response when he tried to tell Zero that he should go back into stasis. And something just seemed entirely..._off_. He couldn't place it, and it drove him to distraction, wondering what it could possibly be that was wrong.

"Nnnnn...owah..." X muttered, opening his eyes halfway. Michael looked up quickly, forcing a smile onto his tired face.

"Welcome back," the human said. The Blue stayed silent for a moment, pushing himself up, looking around slowly before replying.

"Hey Mike. Damn am I glad you're around," the reploid sighed, rubbing his forehead. Michael snickered, but then his smile faded quickly.

"X, I think there's something wrong with Zero," he said, not about to beat around the bush on matters as important as that. "Maybe it's just me being weird, but...I don't know..." The Blue was immediately attentive, staring at Michael intently, before standing up from where he'd been laying on the floor—nowhere else to accomodate him, after all—and looking at Zero, who was still sprawled on the repairing table. His eyes were closed, but it was obvious he was conscious—obvious from the way his teeth were gritted, his breathing quick and shallow, his face contorted into an expression of pain. X immediately was beside him, biting his lower lip, no idea what to do.

"Zero?" he asked quietly, and the blonde's eyes flickered open, staring straight through the other reploid without seeing him. They were glazed, unresponsive. "Can you hear me...?" No response, the reploid's eyes snapped shut again. Suddenly the Red moved—his back arched, as he drew his legs up, gasping thinly, an almost inhuman sound escaping from his throat. X stroked Zero's hair gently, looking up at Michael.

"Lemme guess," he whispered, "you have no idea and you don't think you can do anything about it." The human just nodded, and X turned his gaze back to his tortured lover. Michael backed away, out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him and sighing. Then he blinked, seeing Zcix standing in the middle of the hall, staring off into nowhere, having quite a conversation with himself. The human couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be, seeing as the copy-reploid's words were slurred beyond the point of comprehension.

"Umm..." he began, and immediately the black-haired Zero-clone whirled around, grinning somewhat foolishly.

"Hey!" he said cheerfully, contradicting the fact that he had blood splattered across his face. _His_ blood, as was obvious by the torn condition of his hands. Michael gestured at the reploid's hands wordlessly, and Zcix frowned at them. "I didn't notice I was biting myself," he explained, shrugging as though it didn't matter. The human's expression was utterly blank.

Then both of them went wide-eyed when the stranger stepped out of thin air between them.

"Well hello," Wheruvan greeted casually. As one, Zcix and Michael drew in a quick, hissing gasp of surprise.

"_You_," they both snarled in accusation. The dead-pale man grinned, showing his daggerlike teeth.

"Yes, me," he said simply. "I have nothing against you, Michael, but quite frankly I don't give a shit if I have to kill you. So I suggest you not get in my way." Doctor Light's grandson grimaced, setting his shoulders determinedly.

"Go to Hell," he replied, his voice low and dangerous. Wheruvan's grin turned into a smirk. He made an uncaring gesture with his revealed hand, and suddenly a low rattling creaking sound filled the room.

"I'm sure I'll wind up there eventually," the blue-haired said, chuckling, "but then, I'll see you all there, won't I? C'mon out, friends! Chowtime!" Wheruvan's loud urging, combined with the jingling of his vast collection of chains, urged chaos into motion.

* * *

X, cradling the trembling Zero in his arms as best he could, snapped open his eyes when he heard the thunderous screech that came from the hall. It was an unnatural sound, the shrieking of metal being bent somehow distorted, hollow and tinny and creaking like old leather, baffling the sense of hearing. Settling Zero back on the repair table gently, he opened the door, and his emerald eyes went startlingly wide when he saw the sight beyond.

Bass had certainly been woken up suddenly, but it didn't do him much good—he was tangled up in what looked like a mass of claw-tipped vines, struggling valiantly but clearly losing the battle. Zcix was hopping back and forth quickly to avoid a similar fate, swinging the neon-green sabre he still possessed. The deadly blade whipped through thorned tentacles without so much as slowing, but it acted as though it were nothing more than a pretty light—the vines simply weren't cut at all by the concentrated plasma. It took X a moment to identify the source of all the twisting, writhing tentacles.

It was like an anemone, planted right in the middle of the floor as though it belonged there. The mass of vines extended outwards from its ring of a mouth, hideous teeth gnashing hungrily in anticipation of dragging victims into its circular maw to be shredded apart. X looked down to see one dagger-tipped tentacle winding around his leg, and without even thinking, he stamped down on it, hard. The hideous noise which had drawn him into the hallway in the first place came again, and X charged.

"Zcix!" he shouted over the terrible things squalling cries. "Just give up on the sabre!" The copy-Zero seemed to panicked to hear him, but he was forced to heed the Blue's advice anyway when the monster-anemone snatched the sabre from his grip, tossing it into its mouth. Obviously, it didn't care whether or not something was actually edible—it was going to eat it anyway. The stupid thing then screamed terribly when its teeth punctured the hilt, causing the core within to explode, but didn't appear otherwise phased by it. X focused himself on freeing Bass, who was rapidly becoming more in danger of being ingested. Springing about to avoid being caught by one of the writhing tentacles, he grabbed and pulled on the ones gripping Bass, digging his fingers into them. They were thick and hard as rocks, however, and the only response he received for his troubles was an annoyed creaking noise from the monster. Suddenly a group of tentacles had wrapped around his waste, the claws on the tips digging into his stomache and legs, dragging him up into the air, hanging him upside-down. He could only vaguely hear someone's laughter over the anemone's strange gurgling, as it swung him through the air, drawing him down to its toothy maw. He struck it squarely on one black, fleshy lip, and heard a satisfying _crack_ as the monster's tooth snapped off at the base. It screamed terribly, flinging X away, and he collided with the wall with enough force to go straight through it, into what was undoubtedly Michael's bedroom. Which, curiously enough, was where he found the human, digging in a large cabinet set against the wall. He looked around at X in surprise, then handed him a device which was at once familiar and confusing to the reploid.

"Plasma doesn't do shit to that thing," the human said, "so we're gonna use old-fashioned firearms." X's eyes widened.

"What?! But these must be _ancient!!_ How do you know they'll even still fire?!" the Blue demanded, quickly figuring out the best way to hold the antique gun.

"Because I've practiced with these ones enough to know that I've managed to keep them in perfect condition, despite their age," Michael replied. "And I have a feeling they'll do the job. If we're lucky, we'll get Wheruvan too." X blinked.

"Wheruvan?" he questioned, but the human shook his head.

"No time to explain, but he's the reason that thing's out there in the first place."

* * *

Bass wasn't having a great time. He didn't like being awakened to find some hideous alien monstrosity's limbs wrapped around his neck. And, of course, his buster did nothing at all to the think—it just made a low cracking, creaking sound that the Ebony would _swear_ was giggling.

"Okay bastard, you're going down!" came the shout from somewhere behind him. He managed to get his head turned far enough to see past the twisting, writhing vines, and saw X and Michael. That was an instant before the hall was filled with an explosive, repetitive roaring, one that jumped and trembled, filling the air with the fiery stink of gunpowder. The anemone screamed and jibbered and wailed, its body jerking at each blow, neon yellow blood bursting from the bulletholes peppering its side, drenching the floor. It dropped Bass, its tentacles going limp, and slumped over to the side, only its clawlike roots embedded in the floor keeping it from falling over completely. Finally its creaking went silent.

But they didn't get a moment's respite. Wheruvan was there again, suddenly, laughing like a maniac. And this time both hands were thrown out wide. It was obviously apparent why he never showed his right hand.

While Wheruvan's left was perfectly normal, if pale and slender, his right was anything but. Elongated, gnarled, clawlike fingers, forming a hook from the way his wrist was unnaturally twisted. Looped around that hand was a silver chain, and on the end was a black leopard pendant. He lifted up high over his head, making it spin.

"I once had an amethyst pendant," he informed them, smirking. "I gave it to a fellow named Manticore, and then I used him and threw him away. Then, later, I gave a wasp pendant to a reploid calling himself Jabberwock. Again, used and thrown away—used, in fact, to awaken the Nidhoggr, which was a gift to Reapa from myself. I'm sure you remember it. But it failed, you see—failed to kill Zero and _keep_ him dead, just as Sharded Wolf had failed before then. You people are fucking hard to kill! Just like cockroaches. But then I had a failproof plan. I went and woke Maverick up, and I made a deal with him—I'd give him whatever he wanted, if he'd just get rid of Zero. But not even he could do it. Used, thrown away, and _still you people aren't dead!!!_ I'm amazed, really. If I'd known how much _trouble_ I'd get from you, I wouldn't have made that _first_ deal with Maverick, all those years ago..." He grinned at the narrow-eyed stare he was receiving from X and Bass. "Yes," he laughed loudly, arm still held over his head as though to keep anyone from acting. "I organized a deal with Maverick a long time ago! He wanted to put his hand out in the open a bit, and I was just looking to stir up some trouble for Wily, seeing as he and I didn't get along too well. I led Maverick to Wily's lab, and it was only a matter of time before Zero ran into him." Wheruvan shook his head, sighing heavily. "Ah, now I wish I'd just taken out my annoyance on Wily personally. Maverick always was a disturbing fellow, and I didn't really like dealing with him once, let alone twice, over the same person..." His grin returned in full force. "But now I've decided to step in myself, you see? And here's the trick to it. See this?" He shook his deformed hand slightly, so that the black leopard pendant shivered and spun on its chain. "This little gem is something _quite_ entertaining." He lowered his arm at last, running the fingers of his left hand over it. "It was part of my deal with Maverick. He killed off a bit of Zero when he first encountered him, in order to make room for Bloodrush. But right here...right here I've got whatever's left of that bit, and it makes for quite an effective leash. Isn't that right, Zero?" And here the despicable man—if he could honestly be called a man, whatever he was—looked back over his shoulder, laughing. Zero stood in the open doorway to the repair room, trembling, leaning on the doorframe, his perfect-ocean gaze locked fixedly on Wheruvan. But despite the flame of rage that burned in those eyes, he didn't move, besides gripping the doorframe hard enough to make the wood splinter between his fingers. He didn't say anything. It was obvious from the way his face was twisted that he was still in pain, but that fury in his eyes drowned it out, forced him to face Wheruvan anyway. "Yes, you can hardly dare to touch me as long as I have this. What do you think would happen if this little thing was _damaged?_" The blue-haired creature began to laugh wickedly.

X took that moment to charge. Almost instantly he'd gotten one arm around the wicked man's neck. With his other he gripped Wheruvan's right hand so tightly he felt the malformed bones go to splinters. But still the man was laughing, apparently unconcerned. "You're so predictable!"

Then chaos struck for a second time. But this time it was because Wheruvan, with strength that should've been impossible for a flesh-and-blood being of his size, flipped X over his shoulder, smashing the reploid into the floor, and, using his deformed hand as though it hadn't been smashed beyond hope, crushed the black leopard pendant into powder. Michael opened fire with his ancient weapon an instant too late, it through all the noise in the room, no one could tell what exactly was happening.

It all went silent a moment later. Wheruvan was against the back wall—his thin frame had been thrown pretty far, and his blood spattered the wall. Not at all surprising to Michael, it wasn't red—it was like oil, thick and black. Wheruvan was stubbornly refusing to die, however, his body trembling as though he was laughing.

"Predic...table..." he choked out, before slumping forwards, life finally deserting him. He was still grinning.

X was preoccupied with Zero, who had collapsed on the floor, twitching and gasping and making an odd, low, trembling noise. Bass and Zcix looked at one another, perfectly unsure of what they should be doing now. Michael finally lowered his weapon, looked around, and sighed.

"Bass, Zcix, help me get this mess cleaned up."

* * *

He opened his eyes. He had the feeling it wasn't the first time he'd done so, but he couldn't remember. It felt like it. His head hurt, but he wasn't too concerned with that. It seemed too confusing to focus on—something was off-kilter and he couldn't remember what. He couldn't remember...

...anything at all. Blinking in the dark. The only light was pale and silvery, barely sufficient to illuminate the room. He wished his head would stop hurting. He couldn't remember why. His thoughts were racing, growing panicked, he couldn't remember! There was something missing, he was supposed to remember, he couldn't, he couldn't—

_Calm down, calm down, you've gotta calm down..._ he made a conscious effort to slow his breathing, to try and stop himself from going into hysterics.

Then he tried to move, and his breath caught when he realized someone had their arms wrapped around him. Again he had to try rather hard to get himself to calm down, then he managed to gradually shift himself out of their grip. His efforts to keep from waking them up failed, however, and they pushed themselves up, rubbing emerald eyes sleepily.

"Mm...Zero! You're awake!" they said, but were answered with silence.

_Zero...?_ he watched them, quietly, uncertain. They knew him. Of course they did—they had to have been awful close, if they were sharing a bed. But he couldn't _remember!_ "...Zero?..." Their voice was worried, and they were very close, peering into his ocean-blue eyes with startling emeralds.

"...I..." he finally managed to get out, at once desiring to push this person he didn't remember away and to draw them closer, "...I can't...I...don't know who you are..." Their eyes went wide, and they drew in a startled breath.

"...what...Zero...you...you don't remember me?" they whispered, and he nodded slowly.

"I don't remember anything...not even my _name_..." he said quietly, and his frustration was evident in his voice. The emerald-eyed person was silent for a long moment, then they stood up.

"C'mon," they urged him, and he got up as well, following them without question.

Bass remained in silence for a long moment, before finally letting out a heavy sigh and putting a hand to his forehead.

"Three fucking a.m..." he muttered, shaking his head slowly. His black-and-purple hair was a dissarray, and his dull crimson eyes seemed even vaguer than usual from weariness. "And I swear, you have an uncanny ability to get terrible things to happen to you." That comment was aimed at Zero, who remained silent, frowning slightly.

"Well," Michael said at last, "the best we can hope is that Zero's memories come back. In the meanwhile...I guess you guys sure have a hell of a tale to tell, huh?" The human shrugged. "I'm no use here. I'm going back to bed." And he did just that, using the door to his room even though there was still a hole in his wall. "And don't keep me up with your chatterboxing!"

Zcix shook his head, seeming very disoriented—even moreso than Zero, which wasn't surprising. He opened his mouth, intent on asking if he could go back to bed too, but X shot him such a glare that he quickly snapped his jaws shut again, accidentally biting his tongue in the process. The others ignored his quiet, mopy whimpering.

"...well this is weird," Bass said at last, steepling his fingers.

Zero, feeling utterly lost and miserable, could only nod in agreement.


	18. Part III Epilogue: The Slow Return

Bloodrush II: Destruction Trilogy

* * *

Part III:  
Fog

* * *

Epilogue:  
The Slow Return

* * *

Author's Notes: This may be the end of Bloodrush II, but you could also see it as a beginning...  
...of Bloodrush III! However, I am going to take a break on the whole Bloodrush storyline for a while, in order to get some more work done on other fics. I'll keep you posted in my Fic Status Notes (which, for those that don't know, are in my bio!)  
Yay for reviewers, Crystalstorm21 and neo x!

* * *

He paced the hall slowly, counting each step. Or at least, he would be counting them, if only he didn't forget what number he was on before one step and the next, thusly resulting in him mentally repeating _one...one...one..._ over and over, to no avail. It was five-thirty in the morning, and Zcix could not get himself to go to sleep. He was feeling really restless for some reason, something bothering him that he couldn't place and he wasn't really trying. He was too busy trying to keep count of his steps but it eluded him too easily. Maybe he should just give up. But still he persisted, almost mindlessly, while another part of his thoughts went over events, perhaps trying to figure out what was bothering him.

It had been three days since Wheruvan had been killed. Zcix thought it fair to say that no one would miss that creepy beast. Michael had confiscated his huge number of chains and pendants, but he'd no idea what to do with them, so he'd locked them up in his safe to make sure no one messed with them. Who knew when another one might turn up like that leopard pendant.

Zero was still recovering. It was pretty slow-going; he only just barely recognized X and Bass, he still started whenever he saw Zcix, and he had to be re-introduced to Michael every single day. But every night he woke up gasping, sometimes screaming, from his dreams, which were returning his memories to him very slowly. _All_ his memories, which was why he woke up howling or sobbing more often than not, disgusted with himself over the things he'd done. X tended to not have very good nights either, but that was because he wasn't used to sleeping alone—as long as Zero still had trouble thinking of X as more than a familiar stranger, the Blue thought it would be pressing on his nerves too much to share his bed. And thusly, X spent most of his nights feeling lonely.

Zcix finally got frustrated trying to keep track of his steps, and instead stood there, staring at the hole in Michael's wall. They'd gotten most of the other stuff cleaned and fixed up, though they would have to re-paint and re-carpet in order to get the stain from Wheruvan's black blood out of the wall and floor, but that repairing of that hole in the wall had been put off.

In the silent night, Zcix whirled about when he thought he heard quiet laughter. But no one was there.

* * *

_Click clickick. Click clickick. Click clickick. _Monotony, monotony. Endless sound, wandering the pitch black catacombs. Pointless, driven. Heartless, passionate. Mindless, wondering. A contradiction that stalked on, its uneven steps carrying it slowly about through halls it had traversed a dozen times already and would explore a dozen times again.

"Just waiting for the right time."

* * *

"Well?" was the question. Blues remained silent for a long time. Then he raised one arm, clenching his hand into a fist.

"Perfect," he hissed through his teeth, grinning wickedly. The rat reploid looked at him with some amount of wariness, half-expecting that he would have to pick up and run in a moment.

"Glad you like it," the mechanic said cautiously. The next step was the tentative area. "Now as for _payment_..." B.'s eyes rose to meet his own quickly, and he swallowed, going silent, staring into that cold, flat, silver-white gaze.

"I'll pay you by allowing you to walk out of this room in one piece," the robot said simply, and the rat nodded avidly.

"Sounds fair to me," he said, his voice going scratchy, and turned tail, fleeing down the hall as quickly as any true rat. Blues just laughed quietly to himself.


End file.
